Battle of Phoinix

Battle of Phoinix

date	655
place	off the Lycian coast near Phoinix , Mediterranean Sea
output	Arab victory

Parties to the conflict
arab caliphate	Byzantine Empire
Commander
ʿAbd Allaah ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarh	Constans II
losses
not precisely determinable	not exactly determinable, but apparently difficult

The Battle of Phoinix (also Battle of the Masts , Arabic معركة ذات الصواري, Called DMG Maʿrakat Ḏāt aṣ-Ṣawārī ) was a decisive naval battle between the Byzantine and Arab fleets of the caliphate in 655. The battle took place on the Lycian coast at Phoinix (today Finike ).

prehistory

After Eastern / Byzantium had lost its Middle Eastern provinces, including Egypt, to the Arabs in 636, Islamic expansion in Asia Minor came to a standstill. In 655 the Arabs equipped a fleet in Phenicia , but the sources give different reasons for this. During the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (early 9th century) indicates that the Arabs break the Byzantine naval supremacy and begin a coordinated sea and land offensive wanted, is in Arab sources as the reason the offensive activities of the Emperor Constans II. , Called the the Arabs wanted to counteract.

The battle is mentioned not only in Greek and Arab, but also in Syrian sources; common source for the reports in Theophanes, Agapios of Hierapolis , Michael Syrus and in the chronicle of 1234 should ultimately be the lost chronicle of Theophilos of Edessa . According to Theophanes, the Arab governor of Syria (and later caliph) Muawiya wanted to move into Cappadocia , while the Arab fleet, whose crews were mainly recruited from the Christian population of the conquered areas, was supposed to sail along the south coast of Asia Minor. The fact that the Arabs attacked Rhodes in 654 and their other advances in this area also point to an offensive against Constantinople would also speak for a planned offensive .

Course of the battle

In the Lycian port city of Phoinix , the Byzantine and Arab fleets met. At first there was a ceasefire for the rest of the day, so that both fleets anchored in relative proximity to each other and did not fight until the next day. The data on the strength of both fleets vary in the sources (which are problematic in terms of their interpretation anyway), but it must have been quite considerable on both sides. Both Byzantine and Arabic sources unanimously report a severe defeat of the Byzantines. The dry tradition also makes it impossible to reliably reconstruct the course of the battle. According to Tabari , who describes the battle as the “battle of the masts”, the Byzantines seem to have acted clumsily: They left their ships in close formation and seem to have ventured too close to the Arab fleet without using projectiles or the enemy ships to ram, which enabled the nautically inexperienced Arabs to carry out boardings and turn the sea battle into a land battle. According to some researchers, the Byzantines simply underestimated their opponents, but that is ultimately only a guess. Emperor Konstans II., Who had commanded the fleet himself, was only able to escape with a little difficulty.

consequences

The Byzantine supremacy at sea was only temporarily broken by the defeat at Phoinix, since the Arab fleet was usually inferior to the Byzantine ones in the later conflicts. Nevertheless, the first sea victory of the Islamic Arabs raised their morale considerably before a stalemate in the eastern Mediterranean came again; the defeat came as a shock to the imperial troops, who until then had considered themselves far superior at sea. In his chronicle, Theophanes lists several heavy defeats that the Byzantines suffered during this period, including the battle of Phoinix. Emperor Konstans II concluded a provisional peace treaty with the caliphate in 659, in which he also undertook to pay tribute. Konstans soon decided to move the seat of government to Syracuse in Sicily , which was reversed after his assassination in 668. A short-term relief at the front brought a civil war in the caliphate 656–661 . The victory at Phoinix, until the invention of the Greek fire in the 670s, strengthened the position of the Arabs in the Mediterranean and their expansion into the Aegean , which was followed by several advances in the direction of the imperial capital Constantinople , which were held.

literature

• Salvatore Cosentino: Constans II and the Byzantine navy. In: Byzantine Journal . Volume 100, 2008, pp. 577-603.
• Hugh Kennedy: The Great Arab Conquests. How the Spread of Islam changed the World we live in. Da Capo, Philadelphia PA 2007, ISBN 978-0-306-81585-0 .
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie : The Byzantine reaction to the expansion of the Arabs. Studies on the structural change of the Byzantine state in the 7th and 8th centuries. Munich 1976, p. 67f.
• Andreas N. Stratos: The Naval Engagement at Phoenix. In: Angeliki E. Laiou-Thomadakis (Ed.): Charanis Studies. Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ 1980, ISBN 0-8135-0875-4 , pp. 229ff.

Remarks

1. ^ All relevant sources can be found in Robert G. Hoyland (Ed.): Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Liverpool 2011, pp. 141–144 and in Tabari I 2865ff.
2. ↑ Probably in the summer of 655, as campaigns usually fell during this time of year. Against 655 and for 654, Cosentino, Constans II and the Byzantine navy , p. 587 , has recently pleaded .
3. ^ For a summary, see Kennedy, The great arab conquests , pp. 327f.
4. ↑ Cosentino, Constans II and the Byzantine navy , p. 592f., Based on scattered Arabic sources and a passage from the Armenian chronicler (pseudo-) Sebeos, even assumes that the Arabs carried out a siege of Constantinople following the victory at Phoinix, which but quickly failed. According to him, this episode was ignored in the Greek and Syrian sources because a successful defense would not have matched the image of an unsuccessful emperor that Konstans was made into in these sources because of his religious policy. Cosentino also predates the attack on Rhodes by a year (653 instead of 654).
5. ^ Theophanes , AM 6146
6. ↑ For example Tabari I 2865 (wrongly dated), I 2870
7. ↑ See Tabari I 2870.
8. ↑ According to Theophanes (AM 6146), Konstans is said to have received a warning in a dream about the impending defeat. According to the same anecdote, he is said to have disguised himself on board his flagship and fled to Constantinople.
9. ↑ Theophanes AM 6121 (English translation: The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor. Byzantine and Near Eastern history AD 284-813 . Ed. Cyril Mango / Roger Scott, Oxford 1997, p. 462).
10. ↑ Ralph-Johannes Lilie: The Byzantine reaction to the expansion of the Arabs. Studies on the structural change of the Byzantine state in the 7th and 8th centuries . Munich 1976, p. 68.