At the end of the tenth century, the two major powers of the eastern Mediterranean – the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate – would clash in northern Syria. Their armies would meet in battle twice, and in both cases the Byzantine commander would make a fateful decision that would lead to his defeat.
The two battles that are examined here took place during the Byzantine wars of expansion that dominated the entire eastern frontiers of the Empire for the best part of the tenth century. When the threat from Bulgaria declined after the death of Symeon I in 927, the Empire’s foreign policy shifted to the preservation of a pro-Byzantine Armenia and the establishment of control over strategic territory around the Lake Van – an area that controlled the invasion routes through north-eastern Anatolia. But if Armenia was strategically far more important to the Byzantine government than Cilicia and Syria, then how can we explain the extensive territorial gains of the Empire in Cilicia in the third quarter of the 10th century?
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It all comes down to the personal and political image of the Byzantine Emperor as a sovereign chosen by God to protect His people. It was a titanic struggle between the Emperor Constantine VII (945-59) and Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo (945-67). By the end of the 950s, this war had already escalated into an “all-out” conflict between the Emperor and the Aleppan Emir where no one could (politically) afford to succumb. In the end, it would be the vast resources Byzantium could pour into the wars in the East that turned the tide in their favour by 962.
The capture of Antioch by Michael Bourtzes and the Byzantines in 969 as depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes – Madrid National Library cod. Vitr. 26-2, fol. 153r
By 969 and the conquest of Antioch, Nicephorus II Phocas (963-69) had wrecked the Emirate of Aleppo, swept away the bases for Arab raids in Anatolia and replaced them with a wall of impregnable Byzantine themes (military districts) which was to last for another hundred years. The Emirate of Aleppo was to become a Byzantine dependency, thus enabling the Byzantines to come into direct conflict with the Fatimids of Egypt who held southern Palestine.
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John I Tzimiskes (969-71) focused his attention on the Emirate of Mosul, reducing it to a tributary state by the summer of 974. The Emirate of Aleppo was to be considered some sort of a buffer zone between the two superpowers of the eastern Mediterranean, and Basil II (976-1025) had to come to its rescue in 983. In 991, after dealing with an internal rebellion, the Byzantine emperor began his methodical war against the Bulgarians, leaving sufficient forces in the East to his Duke of Antioch, Michael Bourtzes, to defend against the Fatimids.
The Battle of the Orontes, 15 September 994
Not much information about the battle itself is provided by our (predominantly Muslim) primary sources apart from the basic chain of events and the main protagonists on the opposing sides. Yahya-ibn-Said al-Antaki from Antioch (c.980 – c.1034), an Egyptian Melkite Christian physician and the only Greek-Christian author of an extant Arabic chronicle, writes that Emperor Basil II ordered the Duke of Antioch, Michael Bourtzes, to mobilise his forces against the advancing army of the Fatimid general (of Turkic origin) Manjutakin (d. 1007), while also dispatching reinforcements under the magister and former Duke of Antioch Leo Melissenos.
Yahya is no more specific regarding the numbers and composition (ratio of cavalry-infantry, tagmatic units that arrived as reinforcements from the capital, and other thematic reinforcements) of these armies sent to help the Aleppians and intercept Manjutakin, but Bar Hebraeus, a 13th-century Syriac bishop (of Jewish origin), does mention some 50,000 men, “some horsemen and some foot men.” Although this number may seem rather implausible, it would have been within the Empire’s capabilities by this time to raise an army of more than 10,000 effectives for an imperial expedition south of Antioch.
In theory, the Duke of Antioch had been given jurisdiction (since the time of Tzimiskes) over all the smaller themes created in Cilicia and Syria – just as the Duke of Mesopotamia was in charge of the Armenian themes – with these new smaller themes possibly having a complement of 800 each (all cavalry), while Tarsus and Antioch could even have had as many as 5,000 each. What is certain, however, is the fact that a large part of Bourtzes’ army would have been Armenians since they played a fundamental role in repopulating the regions of Melitene, Tarsus, Adana, and Antioch throughout the previous decades of conflict.
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The Fatimid army seems to have been quite numerous as well, perhaps even 30,000 strong if we believe Bar Hebraeus, although certainly not consisting exclusively of cavalry. According to this chronicler, the size of the Fatimid army would later cause Bourtzes to be reluctant to attack them:
Seeing the many troops Manjutakin had at his disposal, Bourtzes did not think it possible to attack with the troops he had.
Although the sources do not identify exactly the composition of Manjutakin’s forces, his would probably have been a multi-racial army of Turks, elite Iranian Daylami infantry, former Ikhshidite and Kafurid troops, and Bedouins from North Africa and Syria. The 14th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi reports that Manjutakin departed from Damascus in Rabi’ I 394 (15 April-14 May 994) against Antioch where the Byzantine forces were massing. He attempted a show of force by ravaging the environs of the city before marching east to Aleppo where he arrived in Jumada II 384 (13 July-10 August 994). Departing from Antioch, the Byzantine commanders met with the Hamdanid troops sent by Lu’lu al-Kabir, guardian of the Hamdanid Emir Sa’id al-Dawla and nominal ruler of the Emirate of Aleppo since 991.
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The reason why Bourtzes chose to march south to Antartus, just south of Balanea and the base of Lu’lu in the Emirate, instead of turning east to meet with Manjutakin, may have been that he wished to cut the latter off from his base in Damascus. Perhaps he also wished to draw reinforcements for his army from the small theme of Antartus; this was established by Tzimiskes in 971 and it was supposed to have a force of 4,000 cavalry, although Yahya’s report of Basil II having to garrison the town with 4,000 Armenians in 995 shows that this strategic coastal town may have been partially abandoned during the previous years of Byzantine-Fatimid conflict in the region.
Manjutakin, who was besieging Aleppo before learning of the Byzantine-Hamdanid march south, turned west to meet his opponents, with the two armies encamping on the Orontes River, perhaps at the Ruj valley just north of Apamea which the Turks had captured in September, 993. Little information is given about precisely what happened next. The Byzantine-Hamdanid army occupied the west ford of the Orontes, with Yahya presenting Bourtzes as reluctant to cross it and fight the Fatimids head-on even though the Aleppians considered this an easy task. It would probably have been the numbers of the Fatimid army that deterred Bourtzes, and/or perhaps the operation itself, from crossing the Orontes – not a small river – while the enemy held the opposite ford. Despite these reservations, Yahya reports that both parties were making preparations to cross the river.
Manjutakin was the one, however, who retained the strategic initiative by sending a part of his army – the Bedouins and a part of his Daylami or Turkish troops – to reconnoitre the positions of the Hamdanids who were guarding one part of the ford, while he with the rest of his troops would attack the Byzantine force. Our sources report that the Hamdanids panicked and fled, thus allowing the Bedouin attacking party to pillage their camp with their usual unruly behaviour, but we may also suppose that the rest of the detachment would have been given the opportunity to attack the Byzantines from the rear who, by that time, would already have been engaged in combat with the rest of the Fatimid army. Realizing the desperate situation, the Byzantines melted away, leaving their commanders in the field along with their baggage train and 5,000 dead.
There are a number of questions that remain unanswered for this battle, the first between the Byzantines and the “new” Fatimid army that had emerged after Al-Aziz’s policy of incorporating Turkish and Daylami troops into his army after 978. Firstly, would the Byzantines have had time to form their units into a battle formation – the double-ribbed hollow square described in detail in the military manuals of the mid-10th century – to face their opponents who were crossing the Orontes?
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The sources tell us that they had posted sentries to guard the ford, both in the Byzantine and the Hamdanid camps, so it would seem unlikely that they would have been taken by complete surprise. After all, Bourtzes is presented by Yahya as a reluctant – or rather very cautious – commander who dismisses the calls of his Hamdanid troops to cross the river and attack their enemies, keeping in line with the recommendations of all the military treatises since Antiquity, which advised extreme caution and order when having to cross a river while the enemy holds the opposite ford. But had the Byzantines pitched their camp as they were to deploy in battle, as recommended by the Praecepta Militaria of Nicephorus Phocas (c. 969):
They [soldiers] must keep their places in the camp exactly as they set to deploy in battle formation, so that, in the event of a sudden report of the enemy, they will be found ready as though in battle formation.
Unfortunately, the sources are not clear about this point: both al-Qalanisi and Bar Hebraeus highlight an attack against the centre of the enemy formation by an elite corps of “Egyptian” infantry that broke through the enemy lines to win the day for Manjutakin. We may presume that this elite unit would most likely have consisted of daylamis; after all, these hardy infantrymen with their battle-axes, spears (zupins or mizraqs), short swords, bows and shields were renowned for their attacks in close-quarter phalanx formations.
It would have been very interesting if we had been given any clues as to how the Byzantine generals and commanders would have responded to these troops marching against them: would the Armenians have formed a solid 8-men deep phalanx against the Daylamis and the Turkish cavalry? Would the heavy cavalry units have been able to be properly deployed and used in battle? Was the Daylami infantry attack preceded by an attack from the Turkish ghulams, probably in coordination with the archers which we know that Manjutakin had in his army? Were there any heavy infantry or light cavalry units guarding the rear of the Byzantine main force? Regrettably, the sources are silent on all the aforementioned points.
Emperor Basil II depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes
The Battle of Apamea, 19 July 998
The same operational theatre and, probably, the same place would be the focal point of another disaster for the Duke of Antioch. The sources report that Damianos Dalassinos, the officer who replaced Michael Bourtzes in 995, attempted to take advantage of the political uncertainty – if not to use the term civil war – in the Fatimid Caliphate over the last year and march against Apamea – a strategic base for expeditions against Aleppo at its north-east. The political conflict between the Kutama Berbers and the Turkish and Mashariya elements in the Fatimid army, which escalated rapidly after Al-Aziz’s death in 997, seems to have offered the perfect conditions for a Byzantine strike in the region. The latter were involved in a local rebellion in the coastal town of Tyre, early in 998, by sending a naval squadron in support of a local rebel commander, while the Duke of Antioch marched against Apamea early in the spring.
On the Jumada II 388 (30 May-27 June 998), the Fatimid (Kutama Berber) general Jaysh ibn al-Samsana suppressed the rebellion at Tyre with the help of the Fatimid fleet and marched east towards Apamea to relieve the city from the siege. The setting for the battle was very similar to the one in 994, with the two armies facing each other on the opposing sides of the River Orontes – only this time it would have been the Byzantine army camped on the east ford. The twelfth-century Arab politician and historian from Damascus Ibn al-Qalanisi writes about the location of the battlefield:
The battle took place in a large meadow surrounded by a mountain called al-Mudiq [Qal’at al-Mudiq] on which we cannot ride but one-by-one and on the side of which is the lake of Apamea and the river called al-Maqlub [Orontes].
No information is given by any of our sources regarding the numbers that the Duke of Antioch had put to the field, although the army’s size can be indicated by the large number of dead after the battle – some 6,000 according to Yahya. The numbers of the Fatimid force we know from Qalanisi, who reports a total of 10,000 men, of whom 1,000 were Bedouin cavalry of the Banu Kilab. This force also included a contingent of Daylami infantry, reportedly receiving the main Byzantine attack of the day, while our chronicler also mentions a unit of 500 ghulam cavalry under a certain Bishara the Ikhshidite.
The ruins of Apamea – photo by Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons
This time the strategic initiative lay with Damianos Dalassinos, who ordered his troops to cross the Orontes and attack the Fatimid force, with the main attack being directed against the centre of their formation and the Daylami infantry. The attackers managed to break through the enemy formation and force them to flee, with both the left wing of the Fatimid army, led by a certain Mansur the Slav, and the right wing, under the command of the general al-Samsana, following suit. The Byzantines reportedly pursued and killed some 2,000 of the Fatimids, with the only force that stood its ground and offered stout resistance being the unit of the 500 ghulam cavalry.
What happened next is a typical example of the importance of the role of the commander of the army for the morale of his soldiers: with Dalassinos protected only by a bodyguard of some ten “ghulams” and his sons around him, he felt confident enough to expose himself to enemy missiles. A Kurdish ghulam spotted the Imperial banner and, in the spirit of the heroic atmosphere seen only too often in both Christian and Muslim chronicler accounts, he charged against the Duke, inflicting two deadly blows to his head and torso. According to al-Maqrizi
The Duke fell to earth dead. The Muslims shouted, ‘God’s enemy was killed!’ The Greeks fled and the Muslims returned to the attack …
The sources leave many questions unanswered. According to the information about the battlefield provided by Qalanisi – “a large meadow surrounded by a mountain called al-Mudiq [Qal’at al-Mudiq] on which we cannot ride but one-by-one and on the side of which is the lake of Apamea and the river called al-Maqlub [Orontes]” – this was a location that is very likely to have hampered the movements of the cavalry on both sides while also making any encircling manoeuvres relatively difficult to undertake.
Unfortunately, we get absolutely no information regarding the battlefield formation of the opposing armies. According to Umar Ibn Ibrahim al-Awsi Al-Ansari, a scholar and a civil servant in Egypt in the late fourteenth century who wrote a Mamluk manual of war, the fact that the general of the Fatimid army, al-Samsana, was in command of the right wing instead of the usual centre could mean that the right-wing would have been in a more elevated position thus offering a better observation post for the commander-in-chief. Or it could simply mean that he would have put his Daylami infantry in the centre of the formation, perhaps projected a bit farther forward than the rest of the army to act as a shield, while he chose to remain in the flanks in command of a cavalry unit.
But in what order would the units of the Imperial army have crossed the Orontes? Although it is strongly discouraged by all the tacticians – both ancient and contemporary – if an enemy force holds the opposite ford, there is a recommended order of “fighting march” for the crossing of a river, a bridge or a narrow pass while they were marching “near the lands where it is intended to campaign.”
We read in a Byzantine military treatise dated around the third quarter of the tenth century: “… the tagmata (professional units) cross first: first the Scholai, second the Excoubitai, third the Arithmos, fourth the Hikanatoi; and likewise for the themata.” Thus, the army should cross dangerous places during the march based on the order of precedence; but would this order have been followed during the forced crossing of a bridge, most likely under enemy fire? Would the crack troops of the Imperial army – the tagmata – have crossed first, or would they have been preceded by an elite unit of infantry – i.e. the Armenians – to establish a bridge-head and make their crossing less confusing and dangerous?
In trying to tackle these questions, one should keep in mind the examples of Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn and the significant difficulties in coordination and manoeuvre encountered by the heavy cavalry of the English while attempting to cross a river and be deployed for battle while the Scots held the opposite ford.
But if the Byzantine forces had time to cross the Orontes relatively unencumbered, other questions are raised: was the topography of the battlefield suitable for them to be deployed in their regular infantry hollow-square – the typical version of the infantry παράταξις described in the Praecepta Militaria to be used in a narrow terrain? What unit of the Imperial army attacked, and eventually managed to break, the formation of the Daylami infantry deployed in the centre of the Fatimid force? Which units undertook the pursuit of the fleeing Fatimid forces?
For the latter point we should bear in mind once again the recommendations found in the mid-10th century Byzantine manuals regarding the pursuit of a defeated foe:
Until the enemy is in general flight, our units must not break ranks but should follow up in proper formation in the manner discussed.
Also:
When they [the enemy] do turn to flight, it is not the kataphraktoi who should undertake the pursuit but their two accompanying units trailing behind them [regular thematic cavalry].
This should also be seen in comparison with Qalanisi’s comment about Dalassinos:
[Dalassinos] was standing near his standard […] in order to contemplate the victory of his army and to come to the possession of the booty captured.
If we take Qalanisi’s comment at face value, then was the pursuit of the defeated Fatimid forces a disorganised race to seize booty and pillage the enemy camp instead of following the recommendations of the tacticians of the period? Once again the examination of the sources provides us with more questions than answers and it would be careless to make any sort of assumptions based on whatever we can derive from our chroniclers.
The political tension in the region was settled in the following year, in 999, when Emperor Basil felt compelled once again, as he did back in 995 following the first defeat at the Battle of the Orontes, to go to the east in person. He brought with him his elite tagmata, including the Varangian Guard, and he managed to clear the Fatimids from the region of Apamea and went so far as to besiege Tripoli, although with little success. After appointing Nicephorus Uranus as Duke of Antioch, he further established two small themes north of Aleppo to shield Cilicia from future raids. Two years later, in 1001, he would agree to a ten-year truce with the Fatimids, which would be renewed and gradually develop into an era of largely peaceful relations that would last until the First Crusade.
Georgios Theotokis: Ph.D History (2010, University of Glasgow), specializes in the military history of the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. He has published numerous articles and books on the history of conflict and warfare in Europe and the Mediterranean in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. His latest book is Twenty Battles That Shaped Medieval Europe. He has taught in Turkish and Greek Universities; he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Byzantine Studies Research Centre, Bosphorus University, Istanbul.
By Georgios Theotokis
At the end of the tenth century, the two major powers of the eastern Mediterranean – the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate – would clash in northern Syria. Their armies would meet in battle twice, and in both cases the Byzantine commander would make a fateful decision that would lead to his defeat.
The two battles that are examined here took place during the Byzantine wars of expansion that dominated the entire eastern frontiers of the Empire for the best part of the tenth century. When the threat from Bulgaria declined after the death of Symeon I in 927, the Empire’s foreign policy shifted to the preservation of a pro-Byzantine Armenia and the establishment of control over strategic territory around the Lake Van – an area that controlled the invasion routes through north-eastern Anatolia. But if Armenia was strategically far more important to the Byzantine government than Cilicia and Syria, then how can we explain the extensive territorial gains of the Empire in Cilicia in the third quarter of the 10th century?
It all comes down to the personal and political image of the Byzantine Emperor as a sovereign chosen by God to protect His people. It was a titanic struggle between the Emperor Constantine VII (945-59) and Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo (945-67). By the end of the 950s, this war had already escalated into an “all-out” conflict between the Emperor and the Aleppan Emir where no one could (politically) afford to succumb. In the end, it would be the vast resources Byzantium could pour into the wars in the East that turned the tide in their favour by 962.
By 969 and the conquest of Antioch, Nicephorus II Phocas (963-69) had wrecked the Emirate of Aleppo, swept away the bases for Arab raids in Anatolia and replaced them with a wall of impregnable Byzantine themes (military districts) which was to last for another hundred years. The Emirate of Aleppo was to become a Byzantine dependency, thus enabling the Byzantines to come into direct conflict with the Fatimids of Egypt who held southern Palestine.
John I Tzimiskes (969-71) focused his attention on the Emirate of Mosul, reducing it to a tributary state by the summer of 974. The Emirate of Aleppo was to be considered some sort of a buffer zone between the two superpowers of the eastern Mediterranean, and Basil II (976-1025) had to come to its rescue in 983. In 991, after dealing with an internal rebellion, the Byzantine emperor began his methodical war against the Bulgarians, leaving sufficient forces in the East to his Duke of Antioch, Michael Bourtzes, to defend against the Fatimids.
The Battle of the Orontes, 15 September 994
Not much information about the battle itself is provided by our (predominantly Muslim) primary sources apart from the basic chain of events and the main protagonists on the opposing sides. Yahya-ibn-Said al-Antaki from Antioch (c.980 – c.1034), an Egyptian Melkite Christian physician and the only Greek-Christian author of an extant Arabic chronicle, writes that Emperor Basil II ordered the Duke of Antioch, Michael Bourtzes, to mobilise his forces against the advancing army of the Fatimid general (of Turkic origin) Manjutakin (d. 1007), while also dispatching reinforcements under the magister and former Duke of Antioch Leo Melissenos.
Yahya is no more specific regarding the numbers and composition (ratio of cavalry-infantry, tagmatic units that arrived as reinforcements from the capital, and other thematic reinforcements) of these armies sent to help the Aleppians and intercept Manjutakin, but Bar Hebraeus, a 13th-century Syriac bishop (of Jewish origin), does mention some 50,000 men, “some horsemen and some foot men.” Although this number may seem rather implausible, it would have been within the Empire’s capabilities by this time to raise an army of more than 10,000 effectives for an imperial expedition south of Antioch.
In theory, the Duke of Antioch had been given jurisdiction (since the time of Tzimiskes) over all the smaller themes created in Cilicia and Syria – just as the Duke of Mesopotamia was in charge of the Armenian themes – with these new smaller themes possibly having a complement of 800 each (all cavalry), while Tarsus and Antioch could even have had as many as 5,000 each. What is certain, however, is the fact that a large part of Bourtzes’ army would have been Armenians since they played a fundamental role in repopulating the regions of Melitene, Tarsus, Adana, and Antioch throughout the previous decades of conflict.
The Fatimid army seems to have been quite numerous as well, perhaps even 30,000 strong if we believe Bar Hebraeus, although certainly not consisting exclusively of cavalry. According to this chronicler, the size of the Fatimid army would later cause Bourtzes to be reluctant to attack them:
Seeing the many troops Manjutakin had at his disposal, Bourtzes did not think it possible to attack with the troops he had.
Although the sources do not identify exactly the composition of Manjutakin’s forces, his would probably have been a multi-racial army of Turks, elite Iranian Daylami infantry, former Ikhshidite and Kafurid troops, and Bedouins from North Africa and Syria. The 14th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi reports that Manjutakin departed from Damascus in Rabi’ I 394 (15 April-14 May 994) against Antioch where the Byzantine forces were massing. He attempted a show of force by ravaging the environs of the city before marching east to Aleppo where he arrived in Jumada II 384 (13 July-10 August 994). Departing from Antioch, the Byzantine commanders met with the Hamdanid troops sent by Lu’lu al-Kabir, guardian of the Hamdanid Emir Sa’id al-Dawla and nominal ruler of the Emirate of Aleppo since 991.
The reason why Bourtzes chose to march south to Antartus, just south of Balanea and the base of Lu’lu in the Emirate, instead of turning east to meet with Manjutakin, may have been that he wished to cut the latter off from his base in Damascus. Perhaps he also wished to draw reinforcements for his army from the small theme of Antartus; this was established by Tzimiskes in 971 and it was supposed to have a force of 4,000 cavalry, although Yahya’s report of Basil II having to garrison the town with 4,000 Armenians in 995 shows that this strategic coastal town may have been partially abandoned during the previous years of Byzantine-Fatimid conflict in the region.
Manjutakin, who was besieging Aleppo before learning of the Byzantine-Hamdanid march south, turned west to meet his opponents, with the two armies encamping on the Orontes River, perhaps at the Ruj valley just north of Apamea which the Turks had captured in September, 993. Little information is given about precisely what happened next. The Byzantine-Hamdanid army occupied the west ford of the Orontes, with Yahya presenting Bourtzes as reluctant to cross it and fight the Fatimids head-on even though the Aleppians considered this an easy task. It would probably have been the numbers of the Fatimid army that deterred Bourtzes, and/or perhaps the operation itself, from crossing the Orontes – not a small river – while the enemy held the opposite ford. Despite these reservations, Yahya reports that both parties were making preparations to cross the river.
Manjutakin was the one, however, who retained the strategic initiative by sending a part of his army – the Bedouins and a part of his Daylami or Turkish troops – to reconnoitre the positions of the Hamdanids who were guarding one part of the ford, while he with the rest of his troops would attack the Byzantine force. Our sources report that the Hamdanids panicked and fled, thus allowing the Bedouin attacking party to pillage their camp with their usual unruly behaviour, but we may also suppose that the rest of the detachment would have been given the opportunity to attack the Byzantines from the rear who, by that time, would already have been engaged in combat with the rest of the Fatimid army. Realizing the desperate situation, the Byzantines melted away, leaving their commanders in the field along with their baggage train and 5,000 dead.
There are a number of questions that remain unanswered for this battle, the first between the Byzantines and the “new” Fatimid army that had emerged after Al-Aziz’s policy of incorporating Turkish and Daylami troops into his army after 978. Firstly, would the Byzantines have had time to form their units into a battle formation – the double-ribbed hollow square described in detail in the military manuals of the mid-10th century – to face their opponents who were crossing the Orontes?
The sources tell us that they had posted sentries to guard the ford, both in the Byzantine and the Hamdanid camps, so it would seem unlikely that they would have been taken by complete surprise. After all, Bourtzes is presented by Yahya as a reluctant – or rather very cautious – commander who dismisses the calls of his Hamdanid troops to cross the river and attack their enemies, keeping in line with the recommendations of all the military treatises since Antiquity, which advised extreme caution and order when having to cross a river while the enemy holds the opposite ford. But had the Byzantines pitched their camp as they were to deploy in battle, as recommended by the Praecepta Militaria of Nicephorus Phocas (c. 969):
They [soldiers] must keep their places in the camp exactly as they set to deploy in battle formation, so that, in the event of a sudden report of the enemy, they will be found ready as though in battle formation.
Unfortunately, the sources are not clear about this point: both al-Qalanisi and Bar Hebraeus highlight an attack against the centre of the enemy formation by an elite corps of “Egyptian” infantry that broke through the enemy lines to win the day for Manjutakin. We may presume that this elite unit would most likely have consisted of daylamis; after all, these hardy infantrymen with their battle-axes, spears (zupins or mizraqs), short swords, bows and shields were renowned for their attacks in close-quarter phalanx formations.
It would have been very interesting if we had been given any clues as to how the Byzantine generals and commanders would have responded to these troops marching against them: would the Armenians have formed a solid 8-men deep phalanx against the Daylamis and the Turkish cavalry? Would the heavy cavalry units have been able to be properly deployed and used in battle? Was the Daylami infantry attack preceded by an attack from the Turkish ghulams, probably in coordination with the archers which we know that Manjutakin had in his army? Were there any heavy infantry or light cavalry units guarding the rear of the Byzantine main force? Regrettably, the sources are silent on all the aforementioned points.
The Battle of Apamea, 19 July 998
The same operational theatre and, probably, the same place would be the focal point of another disaster for the Duke of Antioch. The sources report that Damianos Dalassinos, the officer who replaced Michael Bourtzes in 995, attempted to take advantage of the political uncertainty – if not to use the term civil war – in the Fatimid Caliphate over the last year and march against Apamea – a strategic base for expeditions against Aleppo at its north-east. The political conflict between the Kutama Berbers and the Turkish and Mashariya elements in the Fatimid army, which escalated rapidly after Al-Aziz’s death in 997, seems to have offered the perfect conditions for a Byzantine strike in the region. The latter were involved in a local rebellion in the coastal town of Tyre, early in 998, by sending a naval squadron in support of a local rebel commander, while the Duke of Antioch marched against Apamea early in the spring.
On the Jumada II 388 (30 May-27 June 998), the Fatimid (Kutama Berber) general Jaysh ibn al-Samsana suppressed the rebellion at Tyre with the help of the Fatimid fleet and marched east towards Apamea to relieve the city from the siege. The setting for the battle was very similar to the one in 994, with the two armies facing each other on the opposing sides of the River Orontes – only this time it would have been the Byzantine army camped on the east ford. The twelfth-century Arab politician and historian from Damascus Ibn al-Qalanisi writes about the location of the battlefield:
The battle took place in a large meadow surrounded by a mountain called al-Mudiq [Qal’at al-Mudiq] on which we cannot ride but one-by-one and on the side of which is the lake of Apamea and the river called al-Maqlub [Orontes].
No information is given by any of our sources regarding the numbers that the Duke of Antioch had put to the field, although the army’s size can be indicated by the large number of dead after the battle – some 6,000 according to Yahya. The numbers of the Fatimid force we know from Qalanisi, who reports a total of 10,000 men, of whom 1,000 were Bedouin cavalry of the Banu Kilab. This force also included a contingent of Daylami infantry, reportedly receiving the main Byzantine attack of the day, while our chronicler also mentions a unit of 500 ghulam cavalry under a certain Bishara the Ikhshidite.
This time the strategic initiative lay with Damianos Dalassinos, who ordered his troops to cross the Orontes and attack the Fatimid force, with the main attack being directed against the centre of their formation and the Daylami infantry. The attackers managed to break through the enemy formation and force them to flee, with both the left wing of the Fatimid army, led by a certain Mansur the Slav, and the right wing, under the command of the general al-Samsana, following suit. The Byzantines reportedly pursued and killed some 2,000 of the Fatimids, with the only force that stood its ground and offered stout resistance being the unit of the 500 ghulam cavalry.
What happened next is a typical example of the importance of the role of the commander of the army for the morale of his soldiers: with Dalassinos protected only by a bodyguard of some ten “ghulams” and his sons around him, he felt confident enough to expose himself to enemy missiles. A Kurdish ghulam spotted the Imperial banner and, in the spirit of the heroic atmosphere seen only too often in both Christian and Muslim chronicler accounts, he charged against the Duke, inflicting two deadly blows to his head and torso. According to al-Maqrizi
The Duke fell to earth dead. The Muslims shouted, ‘God’s enemy was killed!’ The Greeks fled and the Muslims returned to the attack …
The sources leave many questions unanswered. According to the information about the battlefield provided by Qalanisi – “a large meadow surrounded by a mountain called al-Mudiq [Qal’at al-Mudiq] on which we cannot ride but one-by-one and on the side of which is the lake of Apamea and the river called al-Maqlub [Orontes]” – this was a location that is very likely to have hampered the movements of the cavalry on both sides while also making any encircling manoeuvres relatively difficult to undertake.
Unfortunately, we get absolutely no information regarding the battlefield formation of the opposing armies. According to Umar Ibn Ibrahim al-Awsi Al-Ansari, a scholar and a civil servant in Egypt in the late fourteenth century who wrote a Mamluk manual of war, the fact that the general of the Fatimid army, al-Samsana, was in command of the right wing instead of the usual centre could mean that the right-wing would have been in a more elevated position thus offering a better observation post for the commander-in-chief. Or it could simply mean that he would have put his Daylami infantry in the centre of the formation, perhaps projected a bit farther forward than the rest of the army to act as a shield, while he chose to remain in the flanks in command of a cavalry unit.
But in what order would the units of the Imperial army have crossed the Orontes? Although it is strongly discouraged by all the tacticians – both ancient and contemporary – if an enemy force holds the opposite ford, there is a recommended order of “fighting march” for the crossing of a river, a bridge or a narrow pass while they were marching “near the lands where it is intended to campaign.”
In trying to tackle these questions, one should keep in mind the examples of Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn and the significant difficulties in coordination and manoeuvre encountered by the heavy cavalry of the English while attempting to cross a river and be deployed for battle while the Scots held the opposite ford.
But if the Byzantine forces had time to cross the Orontes relatively unencumbered, other questions are raised: was the topography of the battlefield suitable for them to be deployed in their regular infantry hollow-square – the typical version of the infantry παράταξις described in the Praecepta Militaria to be used in a narrow terrain? What unit of the Imperial army attacked, and eventually managed to break, the formation of the Daylami infantry deployed in the centre of the Fatimid force? Which units undertook the pursuit of the fleeing Fatimid forces?
For the latter point we should bear in mind once again the recommendations found in the mid-10th century Byzantine manuals regarding the pursuit of a defeated foe:
Until the enemy is in general flight, our units must not break ranks but should follow up in proper formation in the manner discussed.
Also:
When they [the enemy] do turn to flight, it is not the kataphraktoi who should undertake the pursuit but their two accompanying units trailing behind them [regular thematic cavalry].
This should also be seen in comparison with Qalanisi’s comment about Dalassinos:
[Dalassinos] was standing near his standard […] in order to contemplate the victory of his army and to come to the possession of the booty captured.
If we take Qalanisi’s comment at face value, then was the pursuit of the defeated Fatimid forces a disorganised race to seize booty and pillage the enemy camp instead of following the recommendations of the tacticians of the period? Once again the examination of the sources provides us with more questions than answers and it would be careless to make any sort of assumptions based on whatever we can derive from our chroniclers.
The political tension in the region was settled in the following year, in 999, when Emperor Basil felt compelled once again, as he did back in 995 following the first defeat at the Battle of the Orontes, to go to the east in person. He brought with him his elite tagmata, including the Varangian Guard, and he managed to clear the Fatimids from the region of Apamea and went so far as to besiege Tripoli, although with little success. After appointing Nicephorus Uranus as Duke of Antioch, he further established two small themes north of Aleppo to shield Cilicia from future raids. Two years later, in 1001, he would agree to a ten-year truce with the Fatimids, which would be renewed and gradually develop into an era of largely peaceful relations that would last until the First Crusade.
Georgios Theotokis: Ph.D History (2010, University of Glasgow), specializes in the military history of the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. He has published numerous articles and books on the history of conflict and warfare in Europe and the Mediterranean in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. His latest book is Twenty Battles That Shaped Medieval Europe. He has taught in Turkish and Greek Universities; he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Byzantine Studies Research Centre, Bosphorus University, Istanbul.
Click here to read more from Georgios Theotokis
Further Reading:
Eric McGeer, Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century, (Dumbarton Oaks, 1995)
Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt, (Brill, 1991)
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