Mélanges

James Howard-Johnston
ORIENT ET MÉDITERRANÉE (UMR 8167) / MONDE BYZANTIN
COLLÈGE DE FRANCE / INSTITUT D’ÉTUDES BYZANTINES

TRAVAUX ET MÉMOIRES
– publication annuelle paraissant en un ou deux fascicules –
Fondés par Paul Lemerle
Continués par Gilbert Dagron
Dirigés par Constantin Zuckerman

Comité de rédaction :
Jean-Claude Cheynet, Vincent Déroche,
Denis Feissel, Bernard Flusin

Comité scientifique :
Wolfram Brandes (Francfort) Peter Schreiner (Cologne – Munich)
Jean-Luc Fournet (Paris) Werner Seibt (Vienne)
Marlia Mango (Oxford) Jean-Pierre Sodini (Paris)
Brigitte Mondrain (Paris)

Secrétariat de rédaction, relecture et composition :

Emmanuelle Capet

©Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance – 2022

ISBN 978-2-916716-87-9
ISSN 0577-1471
 COLLÈGE DE FRANCE – CNRS
CENTRE DE RECHERCHE D’HISTOIRE
ET CIVILISATION DE BYZANCE

TRAVAUX ET MÉMOIRES
26

Mélanges
James Howard-Johnston

edited by
Phil Booth & Mary Whitby

Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance

52, rue du Cardinal-Lemoine – 75005 Paris
2022
James in Algeria (spring 2017)
Photograph courtesy of Eugenie Teasley
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of contributors .................................................................................................. ix

Preface ................................................................................................................... xiii
Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... xv
Main publications of James Howard-Johnston ..................................................... xvii

Mark Whittow, Byzantium and the “feudal revolution” ........................................... 1

Peter Heather, Mark and James (& me…): a memoir of Mark Whittow ................ 15

Late antiquity 21

Walter Beers, A Miaphysite subalternity? John of Ephesus, the Jafnids,

and the villages of the Ḥawrān ............................................................................ 23
Geoffrey Greatrex, Procopius, the Nika riot, and the composition
of the Persian Wars ............................................................................................... 45
Tim Greenwood, Adontz, Armenia and Iran in late antiquity ............................... 59
Fiona K. Haarer, Zeno’s frontier policy: tactics and diplomacy .............................. 83
Peter Heather, Malchus of Philadelphia & a Byzantine diplomatic archive ........... 105
Neil McLynn, Ammianus Marcellinus and the making of Persian strategy ............ 125
Charles F. Pazdernik, Chosroes as spectator in Procopius’ Wars ............................ 143
Alexander Sarantis, Two worlds in crisis: warfare, political change, and economic
recession in Anatolia and the Balkans, ca. 565–750 ........................................... 163
Josef Wiesehöfer, Alfred von Gutschmid, Theodor Nöldeke
and the beginnings of the Sasanian Empire ....................................................... 191
Miranda E. Williams, East Roman client management during the reign
of Justinian I: a comparison of strategies on the Eastern and African frontiers ... 209

Mélanges James Howard-Johnston, ed. by Phil Booth & Mary Whitby

(Travaux & mémoires 26), Paris 2022, pp. V–VII.
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

The last great war and the rise of Islam 231

Phil Booth, Egypt under the Sasanians (619–29):

“stability, continuity, and tolerance”? ................................................................. 233
Sebastian Brock, The emperor Maurice through East Syriac eyes ......................... 259
Rika Gyselen, La géographie administrative de l’Empire sassanide :
ce que le Šahrestānīha-ye Ērānšahr ne dit pas ...................................................... 271
Marek Jankowiak, P.Lond. I 113.10, the exile of Patriarch Kyros of Alexandria,
and the Arab conquest of Egypt ........................................................................ 287
Andrew Marsham, Bede, Ibn Isḥāq, and the idols: narratives of conversion
at late antique edges .......................................................................................... 315
Arietta Papaconstantinou, Witnessing a world crisis from below:
the view from rural Egypt .................................................................................. 341
Vivien Prigent, L’usurpation du patrice « Flavius Grégoire » : rana in fabula ? ...... 353
Christian C. Sahner, The Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (d. ca. 724)
[BHG 1217]: study and translation ................................................................... 385
Peter Sarris, At the origins of the “persecuting society”? Defining the “orthodox
republic” in the age of Justinian ......................................................................... 407
Eberhard W. Sauer, Jebrael Nokandeh, Hamid Omrani Rekavandi,
Roger Ainslie, Mohammad Arman Ershadi & Davit Naskidashvili,
Qalʿeh Kharabeh in northern Iran: a Sasanian military tent city
for ten thousand mounted soldiers? ................................................................... 423
David G. K. Taylor, The Syriac version of Strategios’ History of the Persian
conquest of Jerusalem .......................................................................................... 445
Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, “The coals which were his guardians…”:
the hermeneutics of Heraclius’ Persian campaign and a faint trace
of the “last great war” in Zoroastrian literature .................................................. 467
Bryan Ward-Perkins, From soldier martyr to warrior saint:
the evidence to ad 700 ...................................................................................... 491
Mary Whitby, George of Pisidia’s poem On the Avar War (Bellum avaricum):
introduction and translation .............................................................................. 517
Michael Whitby, The year 629 and the Chronicon paschale ................................... 545
Andrew Wilson, A series of unfortunate events: the end of classical urbanism
in southwestern Asia Minor in the early seventh century ad .............................. 565
Philip Wood, New histories of a time of conflict: the seventh century
in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian ............................................................... 595
 TABLE OF CONTENTS VII

Middle Byzantium and beyond 615

Jean-Claude Cheynet, Les étrangers (Bulgares, Arméniens, Francs), ciment

de l’aristocratie micrasiatique au xie siècle ? ........................................................ 617
Jeffrey Michael Featherstone & Juan Signes Codoñer, Tales from the Palace?
Ten episodes in the Ps-Symeon and their possible connexion with
Basil Lecapenus and the historiographical atelier of Constantine VII ................. 633
Peter Frankopan, Kaiserkritik in 12th-century Byzantium: understanding the
significance of the Epitome historiôn of John Zonaras ......................................... 653
Mirela Ivanova, Seeing like a church: the politics of Theophylact of Ohrid’s
Fifteen martyrs of Tiberioupolis ........................................................................... 675
Rosemary Morris, From promulgation to practice: the evidence for the application
of tenth-century legislation in the Athonite archives .......................................... 695
Jonathan Shepard, Missions, emissions and empire: the curious case of Cherson .. 711
Constantin Zuckerman, The eleventh century in De administrando imperio ......... 743
Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, The Byzantinist of Isfahan: Ḥamza ibn al-Ḥasan
on Greek and Roman history ............................................................................ 759

Afterword 777

Catherine Holmes, James: an appreciation ............................................................ 777

Abstracts/Résumés en anglais ................................................................................. 781

 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Wa l t e r B e e r s is a PhD candidate in History
at Princeton University. His dissertation, The
tottering house of the world: rural Miaphysite
sectarianism in the works of John of Ephesus,
uses the works of that Syriac historian and
hagiographer to reinterpret the social history
of the sixth-century anti-Chalcedonian or
Miaphysite movement.
P h i l B o o t h is the A. G. Leventis Associate
Professor of Eastern Christianity at the
University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow
at St Peter’s College. He is the author of Crisis
of empire : doctrine and dissent at the end of
late antiquity (2014), and is interested in
Christian communities in the Roman and
Islamic Empires.
S e b a s t i a n B r o c k is Emeritus Reader in Syriac
Studies, Oxford University, and Emeritus
Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He has
edited and translated a number of Syriac texts
and has a special interest in Syriac translations
from Greek, and in early Syriac poetry.
Je a n - C l a u d e C h e y n e t is Emeritus Professor
of Byzantine History at the Sorbonne and an
honorary member of the Institut universitaire
de France. He is the author of Pouvoir et
contestations à Byzance (963-1210), The
Byzantine aristocracy and its military function,
and of many articles on the aristocracy and on
sigillography. He is a former editor of Revue des
études byzantines and of Studies in Byzantine
sigillography (with C. Sode).
Je f f r e y M i c h a e l F e at h e r s t o n e is chargé
de recherche in Byzantine Studies of the
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
(CNRS) at the École des hautes études en
sciences sociales in Paris and at the University
of Strasbourg.
Mélanges James Howard-Johnston, ed. by Phil Booth & Mary Whitby
(Travaux & mémoires 26), Paris 2022, pp. IX–XII.
Pe t e r F r a n k o p a n is Professor of Global
History at Oxford University where he is
Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine
Research. He has been Senior Research Fellow
at Worcester College, Oxford since 2000.
G e o f f r e y G r e at r e x is a professor in the
Department of Classics and Religious Studies
at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is
the president of the Canadian Committee of
Byzantinists and of the Canadian Esperanto
Association. His work focuses on the reign of
Justinian and the Roman eastern frontier, on
which he has published a number of articles
and monographs.
Ti m G r e e n w o o d is a Reader in the School
of History at the University of St Andrews.
He has published widely on the political,
social, and cultural history of late antique and
medieval Armenia (ca. 500–1100). His study
and translation of the early eleventh-century
Universal history of Step‘anos Tarōnec‘i was
published in 2017. He is currently working
on a range of projects including a monograph
on law and legal culture in medieval Armenia.
R i k a G y s e l e n is Research Director emerita at
the Centre national de la recherche scientifique
(CNRS) in Paris. She is co-director of the
series « Studia iranica. Cahiers » (Association
pour l’avancement des études iraniennes) and
director of the series Res orientales. She has
devoted her work to the study of primary
sources for the history of the Sasanian Empire,
specifically seals, sealings and coinage.
F i o n a K . H a a r e r was supervised for her
M.Phil. in classical and Byzantine Studies by
James Howard-Johnston. Her work covers the
history, literature, and culture of the fifth–
sixth centuries and includes two monographs
The emperor Anastasius I : politics and empire
X LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
in the late Roman world (2006), and Justinian :
empire and society in the sixth century (2022).
She is the Secretary of the Hellenic Society and
Roman Society and holds a Visiting Research
Fellowship at King’s College London.
Pe t e r H e at h e r has been Professor of Medieval
History at King’s College London since 2008.
He was taught by James Howard-Johnston in
his final year as an undergraduate (1980–1)
and then pursued his doctorate initially under
James’ supervision and subsequently worked
jointly with James and John Matthews (1981–
86). He held the Murray Research Fellowship
at Worcester College Oxford (1987–91),
before moving to University College, London,
and then back to Worcester as Tutor & Fellow
in History.
C a t h e r i n e H o l m e s studied with James in
Oxford in the 1990s. She is currently Professor
of Medieval History in Oxford and Fellow and
Tutor in history at University College. Among
her publications are a monograph on Basil II
(2005) and two recent co-edited volumes:
The global Middle Ages (2018, with Naomi
Standen) and Political culture in the Latin
West, Byzantium and the Islamic world c. 700
– c. 1500 (2021, with Jonathan Shepard, Jo
Van Steenbergen and Björn Weiler).
M i r e l a I va n o va is Lecturer in Medieval
History at the University of Sheffield. She
is working on a book entitled Inventing
Slavonic : cultures of writing between Rome and
Constantinople.
M a r e k J a n kow i a k is Associate Professor of
Byzantine History at the University of Oxford
and Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He
completed his dissertation on the monothelete
controversy at the University of Warsaw and
the École pratique des hautes études in 2009.
His research focuses on the transformation of
the Roman world in the seventh century ad,
the Eastern Roman Empire in the middle
Byzantine period, and slave trade and slavery
in the ninth and tenth centuries ad.
N e i l M c L y n n taught for many years at
Keio University in Japan. He was appointed
University Lecturer in Late Roman History
at Oxford in 2007, as a junior partner in
James Howard-Johnston’s LABS operation,
and is currently chair of the Faculty Board
of Classics.
A n d r e w M a r s h a m is Professor of Classical
Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge
and a fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge.
His publications focus on early Islamic ritual
and political culture, empire, and histori-
ography, often situating them in relation to
wider late antique and early medieval contexts.
He is the author of Rituals of Islamic monarchy
(Edinburgh, 2009), the co-editor of Power,
patronage, and memory in early Islam (Oxford,
2018), with Professor Alain George, and the
editor of The Umayyad world (Routledge,
2021).
R o s e m a r y M o r r i s is a former Reader in
History at the University of Manchester and
now teaches for the University of York. From
2009–13, she was Chair of the UK Society
for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. She is
the author of Monks and laymen in Byzantium
(1995), The Hypotyposis of the monastery of
the Theotokos Evergetis, Constantinople (with
R. H. Jordan, 2012), The life and death of
Theodore of Stoudios (with R. H. Jordan,
2021) and numerous articles on Byzantine
monasticism and Byzantine administrative
and legal history of the 10th and 11th centuries.
A r i e t t a Pa pa c o n s ta n t i n o u is a historian
of the early medieval eastern Mediterranean,
with a special interest in the transition from
the Byzantine to the early Islamic Empires and
how it affected local populations. She teaches
Late Antique History at the University of
Reading.
C h a r l e s Pa z d e r n i k is Professor of Classics
at Grand Valley State University in Allendale,
Michigan. His work focuses on the political
and legal history of the age of Justinian and
on classical and classicizing historiography,
especially the reception of Herodotus and
Thucydides in the work of Procopius of
Caesarea.
V i v i e n P r i g e n t a former fellow of the
École française de Rome and of the Maison
française d’Oxford, is Research Professor at the
UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée – CNRS.
A specialist in Byzantine Italy, and in particular
Sicily, he is interested in administrative and
economic history, which he approaches
mainly through sigillographic and numismatic
sources. He first met James Howard-Johnston
at the International Congress of Byzantine
Studies in Paris in 2001. Too impressed to
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
say anything sensible, he was nonetheless
rewarded for his efforts with a big smile.
C h r i s t i a n C . S a h n e r is Associate Professor
of Islamic History at the University of Oxford
and a Fellow of St Cross College. His recent
publications including Christian martyrs under
Islam (Princeton, 2018) and Conversion to
Islam in the pre-modern age (California, 2020,
co-editor). He is currently working on the
history of political and religious movements
in the mountains of the medieval Islamic
world, as well as the history of early medieval
Zoroastrianism.
A l e x a n d e r S a r a n t i s is a NAWA (Polish
National Agency for Academic Exchange)-
sponsored ULAM Research Fellow and
Assistant Professor in Byzantine History at
the University of Warsaw. He previously
held fellowships in Tübingen and Mainz
and lectured at the Universities of Kent,
Aberystwyth, and Swansea. He has published
on late antique and Byzantine political and
military history, focusing in particular on
the Balkans, barbarian groups living north of
the Danube, the emperor Justinian, and the
historian Procopius.
Pe t e r S a r r i s is Professor of Late Antique,
Medieval, and Byzantine Studies at the
University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge. He was taught
Byzantine History by James Howard-Johnston
while he was a student in Oxford, where he
was also a Fellow of All Souls College.
E b e r h a r d W. S a u e r is Professor of Roman
Archaeology in the School of History, Classics
and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh.
His article has been produced in collaboration
with the following team: Jebrael Nokandeh,
Director of the National Museum of Iran,
Tehran, and Research Fellow at the Research
Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism;
Hamid Omrani Rekavandi, Director of the
Great Gorgan Wall Cultural Heritage Base,
Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and
Tourism Organization; Roger Ainslie, founder
of Abingdon Archaeological Geophysics;
Mohammad Arman Ershadi, Manager of the
Farah Abad Cultural Heritage Base, Iranian
Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism
Organization; Davit Naskidashvili, Lecturer
at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.
XI
Jo n a t h a n S h e pa r d was University Lecturer
in Russian History at Cambridge. With
S. Franklin he co-authored The emergence of
Rus (1996) and co-edited Byzantine diplomacy
(1992), and twelve of his studies appear in his
Emergent elites and Byzantium (2011). Edited
volumes include The expansion of Orthodox
Europe (2007), The Cambridge history of the
Byzantine Empire (rev. ed. 2019); Political
culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and
the Islamic world, c. 700 – c. 1500 (with
C. Holmes, J. Van Steenbergen and B. Weiler,
2021).
J u a n S i g n e s C o d o ñ e r is Professor of
Greek at the University Complutense in
Madrid. President of the Spanish Association
of Byzantine Studies and editor of its Boletín,
he is currently doing research on rewriting in
Byzantium.
Da v i d G . K . Tay lo r is the Associate Professor
of Aramaic and Syriac at the University of
Oxford.
Yu h a n S o h r a b - D i n s h a w Ve va i n a is
the Bahari Associate Professor of Sasanian
Studies and a Fellow of Wolfson College,
Oxford. After receiving his Ph.D. in Iranian
and Persian Studies in the Department of
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at
Harvard University in 2007, he has taught
at Harvard University, Stanford University,
and the University of Toronto. He is co-editor
with Michael Stausberg of The Wiley Blackwell
companion to Zoroastrianism. In 2021 he
completed a critical edition and commentary
on the ninth book of the Dēnkard, to be
published by Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden.
B r y a n Wa r d - P e r k i n s is a retired Professor
of Late Antique History at the University of
Oxford, who has worked on several different
aspects of the late antique past: cities, the
economy, honorific statuary, and, currently,
saints. He is the author of The fall of Rome
and the end of civilization (2005), and joint
editor of The last statues of antiquity (2016).
In 2014–18 he was Principal Investigator of
the “Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity” project,
funded by the European Research Council.
M a r y Wh i t b y has enjoyed a career teaching
Greek, currently at Merton College, Oxford.
She is Senior General Editor for Translated
Texts for Historians (Liverpool UP). Her
XII LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

research interests lie chiefly in late antique M i r a n d a E . Wi l l i a m s is a researcher in the

Greek poetry, in particular George of Pisidia. Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford,
and deputy director of the Manar al-Athar
M i c h a e l Wh i t b y is an Emeritus Professor
Photo-Archive project (www.manar-al-athar.
at the University of Birmingham. After two
ox.ac.uk). Her Oxford DPhil thesis, completed
decades that were mostly devoted to university
under the supervision of James Howard-
administration, he has now returned to serious
Johnston, considered the integration of North
academic research on the late sixth and early
Africa into the Eastern Roman Empire under
seventh centuries.
the emperor Justinian I (527–65 ce). Her
M a r k Wh i t t ow (1957-2017) was University research focusses on the political history of the
Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at the University Eastern Roman Empire, and, in particular, the
of Oxford, and a Fellow of Corpus Christi empire’s foreign relations in the 6th century ce.
College. His numerous publications include
P h i l i p Wo o d is Tejpar Professor of Inter-
The making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–
Religious Studies at Aga Khan University,
1025 (1996) and Byzantium in the eleventh
Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
century : being in between (2017, ed. with Marc
in London. He is a historian of the Middle
Lauxtermann).
East between c. 400–900. He published The
Jo s e f Wi e s e h ö f e r is a retired Professor of imam of the Christians : the world of Dionysius
Ancient History at the University of Kiel where of Tel-Mahre, 750–850 (Princeton, 2021) and
he was director of the department of classics. co-edited a volume with Prof. Leif Stenberg,
He graduated from Muenster (PhD.) and entitled What is Islamic studies? European and
Heidelberg (Habilitation) and is a member of North American approaches to a contested field
the Academia Europaea, ordinary member of (Edinburgh, 2022).
the German Archaeological Institute (Berlin)
C o n s t a n t i n Z u c k e r m a n , formerly a reader
and corresponding member of the Academy
(maître de conférences) at the Collège de
of Sciences at Goettingen. His main interests
France, is currently a professor (directeur
are in the history of the ancient Near East and
d’études) of Byzantine History at the École
its relations with the Mediterranean world,
pratique des hautes études (EPHE), part of
in social history, the history of early modern
the research University Paris Sciences & Lettres
travelogues and the history of scholarship.
(PSL).
A n d re w Wi l s o n is Professor of the Archaeology
E d w a r d Zyc h ow i c z - C o g h i l l is Lecturer
of the Roman Empire and Fellow of All Souls
in the History of Asia at King’s College
College, Oxford. He wrote a DPhil thesis on
London. He has published on early Islamic
Roman water technology in North Africa.
historiography, notably The first Arabic annals
His research interests include the economy
(Berlin, 2021) and How the West was won :
of the Roman Empire, ancient technology,
unearthing the Umayyad history of the conquest
ancient water supply and usage, Roman North
of the Maghrib (2020). One facet of this work
Africa, and archaeological field survey. Recent
is an interest in how and why medieval middle
publications include: The economy of Pompeii
eastern authors represented the pre-Islamic
(ed. with Miko Flohr, Oxford, 2017); Trade,
past and its continuing repercussions in the
commerce, and the state in the Roman world (ed.
Islamic world, resulting in the co-edited
with Alan Bowman, Oxford, 2018); Recycling
volume Cities as palimpsests? Responses to
and reuse in the Roman economy (ed. with
antiquity in Eastern Mediterranean urbanism
Chloë Duckworth, Oxford, 2020).
(Oxford, 2022).
 PREFACE

Apart from a brief sojourn at as a Junior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington in

1968–9, James Howard-Johnston spent his entire academic career at the University of Oxford.
After a period as Junior Research Lecturer at Christ Church from 1966 to 1971, he was
thereafter University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College
until his retirement almost forty years later, in 2009. In the mid 2000s he served briefly as
interim President of Corpus. From 1972 to 1987 he was also passionately involved in local
politics, as an Oxford City Councillor and Oxfordshire County Councillor. With his retirement
from politics came a flood of publications which has continued until today.
Across his career James has cultivated a number of interests in, for example, the political
and military histories of Byzantium, the Eurasian Steppe, and the Sasanian Empire; Byzantine
historiography; medieval law and commerce; and, perhaps above all, the history of warfare,
and in particular the “world crisis” which dramatically and permanently reordered the Middle
East in the course of the seventh century. Readers of James’ bibliography up to 2022, which we
include at the beginning of this volume, will perceive the simultaneous cultivation of all these
interests, but also a growing preoccupation with the seventh century, which intensified from the
1990s and then culminated in two masterpieces of scholarship produced in his retirement—or,
as James would say in typical self-depreciating style, his “defunctitude”. The first, Witnesses
to a world crisis, represents a distillation of many years of careful rumination on the diverse
sources for seventh-century political history, and a profound reflection on the rise of Islam and
the Arab conquests. The second (for which Witnesses is in many ways the prequel), The last
great war of antiquity, stands now as the first full history of the final conflict of the Roman
and Iranian Empires, a grand topic of which James has long been the recognised master.
Readers of James’ books and articles in isolation might not appreciate how deeply they reflect
his teaching in Oxford, in particular for two undergraduate courses through which many of
our contributors have passed—“The Near East in the age of Justinian and Muhammad”; and
“Byzantium in the age of Constantine Porphyrogenitus”. The easy but profound familiarity
with each period’s texts; the careful dissection of small details; the intellectual flair in their
interpretation—each is the mark of a tutor who has mastered the texts over many years of
revision, and teased out new interpretations in discussing ideas with an ever-changing cast of
pupils. James was a key player in the conception of the Late Antique and Byzantine Studies
Master’s course (LABS), which is now hugely popular (to the extent that James once proclaimed,
“They are too many!”). In Oxford James will be remembered above all as a brilliant tutor and
supervisor, who energised the young and thrived in the company of the latest generation of
postgraduate students. When reading in the Lower Reading Room of the Bodleian, he would
take a break for reflection and refreshment in Brown’s Café in the Covered Market or the King’s
Arms, where passing students were always invited to join him. Even in retirement, before his
XIV PREFACE

relocation to Brighton, he was still each day to be found in Oxford’s Ioannou Centre, talking
to aspiring Byzantinists in the seating area, supervising Master’s essays in his tiny, book-strewn
office perched above the central courtyard, or throwing himself into some new postgraduate
language class in the basement (where lurked different groups for Ethiopic, Syriac, Arabic,
and Middle Persian—all of them driven by James’ presence). After the sudden and terrible
death of his pupil, friend, and successor Mark Whittow in a car accident in 2017, James even
emerged from his retirement to teach Byzantine History to that year’s large Master’s cohort,
inspiring another generation of devotees who would hang upon his every word during classes
and seminars.
James has never tired of meeting new interlocutors or hearing new ideas. In seminars he
takes and keeps assiduous notes; he never fails to ask a probing question (introduced, in his
later years, by the dramatic parting at the central bridge of the bespoke glasses which alternately
clamp the skull or hang around the neck). He approaches academic life with an infinite
curiosity and infectious enthusiasm, qualities which leap from the pages of his published
research. His work is marked with a rigorous command of sources and chronology, a rare
intellectual daring and imagination, and a deep appreciation of the material conditions of the
past. As the photographs in this volume attest (and also his popular volume, co-authored with
Nigel Ryan, The scholar and the gypsy), James is an assiduous and adventurous traveller,
believing that history cannot properly be understood without an intimate knowledge of the
landscape in which it was played out. His work unwaveringly demonstrates the same empathy
for human beings in the past that he shows to those who surround him in the present.
The contributors to this volume represent but a small selection of James’ many colleagues,
students, and admirers, each of whom has been touched in some way by his personal generosity,
and fired by his enormous input into teaching and research. The personal recollections which
accompany many of the papers speak for themselves. This volume is our small way of saying
thank you.

Phil Booth and Mary Whitby, 30th March 2022

The editors regret that they have been unable to identify the photographer
of the portraits of James in Algeria and of James in California.
 ABBREVIATIONS

AnBoll Analecta bollandiana. Bruxelles.

AnTard Antiquité tardive. Turnhout.
BHG Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, 3e éd. mise à jour et considérablement
augmentée, Bruxelles 1957.
BHO Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis. Bruxelles.
BMGS Byzantine and modern Greek studies. Leeds.
BSl. Byzantinoslavica : revue internationale des études byzantines. Praha.
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African studies. London.
Byz. Byzantion : revue internationale des études byzantines. Wetteren – Leuven.
Byz. Forsch. Byzantinische Forschungen : internationale Zeitschrift für Byzantinistik. Amsterdam.
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Berlin.
CANT Clavis apocryphorum Novi Testamenti, cura et studio M. Geerard, Turnhout
1992.
CCSG Corpus christianorum. Series graeca. Turnhout.
CCSL Corpus christianorum. Series latina. Turnhout.
CFHB Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae.
CIL Corpus inscriptionum latinarum. Berlin 1963–.
CPG Clavis patrum graecorum. Turnhout 1974–2003.
CPR Corpus papyrorum Raineri. Wien 1895–.
CRAI Comptes rendus. Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Paris.
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Louvain.
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum. Vindobonae 1866–.
CSHB Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae. Bonn.
DChAE ∆ελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς ἀρχαιολογικῆς ἑταιρείας. Αθήνα.
DOP Dumbarton Oaks papers. Washington.
EI 2
Encyclopédie de l’Islam, nouvelle édition, éd. par P. Bearman, T. Bainquis, et al.,
Leiden – Paris 1960–2009. online: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/
browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2

Mélanges James Howard-Johnston, ed. by Phil Booth & Mary Whitby

(Travaux & mémoires 26), Paris 2022, pp. XV–XVI.
XVI ABBREVIATIONS

EI3 Encyclopaedia of Islam. Three, ed. by K. Fleet, G. Krämer, D. Matringe, J. Nawas,

& E. Rowson, Leiden 2011–; online: referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/
encyclopaedia-of-islam-3
FM 1– Fontes minores, hrsg. von D. Simon (Forschungen zur byzantinischen Rechts-
geschichte), Frankfurt am Main 1976–.
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies. Durham.
JESHO Journal of the economic and social history of the Orient. Leiden.
JHS The journal of Hellenic studies. London.
JLA Journal of late antiquity. Baltimore.
JÖB Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik. Wien.
JÖBG Jahrbuch der österreichischen byzantinischen Gesellschaft. Wien.
JRA Journal of Roman archaeology. Cambridge.
JRS The journal of Roman studies. London.
MGH Monumenta Germaniae historica. Berlin. AA : Auctores antiquissimi. Epp. :
Epistolae.
ODB Oxford dictionary of Byzantium, A. P. Kazhdan ed. in chief, New York 1991.
OLA Orientalia lovaniensia analecta. Louvain.
P&P Past & present. Oxford.
PLRE The prosopography of the later Roman Empire, by A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale
& J. Morris, Cambridge 1971–92.
PmbZ Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, nach Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns
erstellt von R.-J. Lilie et al., Berlin 1998–2013. online : degruyter.com/pmbz.
PG Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca, accur. J.-P. Migne, Paris 1856–66.
PL Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, accur. J.-P. Migne, Paris 1844–65.
PO Patrologia orientalis. Paris.
REB Revue des études byzantines. Paris.
ROC Revue de l’Orient chrétien. Paris.
SC Sources chrétiennes. Paris.
SEG Supplementum epigraphicum graecum. Amsterdam – Leiden.
SemClass Semitica & classica. Turnhout.
Teubner Bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et romanorum teubneriana. Leipzig.
TM Travaux & mémoires. Paris.
TTH Translated texts for historians. Liverpool.
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Bonn.
ZRVI Зборник радова Византолошког института. Београд.
THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM
(d. ca. 724) [BHG 1217]
STUDY AND TRANSLATION*

by Christian C. Sahner

I. Introduction
The Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217) is a short Greek text that
describes the death of a group of Byzantine nobles during an ill-fated pilgrimage to the
Holy Land in ca. 724.1 It belongs to a larger group of Christian martyrdom narratives
produced in Palestine and neighbouring regions during the early centuries of Islamic rule.2
Both in terms of historical setting and likely date of composition, it is among the earliest
of these narratives, and therefore of great scholarly interest. Although the text has been
studied before, notably by George Huxley and Panayotis Yannopoulos, it has received
considerably less attention than other examples of the genre.3 Specifically, it has never
before been translated into a modern European language, and major questions about its
provenance and historical context remain to be answered.4
For my part, I did not discuss the Passion in detail in my recent book about the
Christian martyrs of the early Islamic period.5 My reason for this was that the text does
not fit neatly into one of the three categories of martyrdom narratives I did focus on and
which constitute the bulk of the surviving evidence: stories of Christians who converted
to Islam then returned to Christianity; of Muslims who converted to Christianity; and
of Christians who blasphemed the Prophet Muḥammad. Instead, the Passion belongs to

* I am grateful to Evgenios Iverites for his help in preparing this article and to the editors for their
useful feedback.
1. BHG, vol. 2, p. 101; Efthymiadis, The Sixty martyrs. See also Bibliotheca sanctorum. 6,
pp. 293–5; PmbZ 10231; Dumbarton Oaks hagiography database, pp. 90-1.
2. For an overview of these works, see Sahner, Christian martyrs.
3. Huxley, The Sixty martyrs; Yannopoulos, Légende. See also Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm,
pp. 47, 128, 176–81; Kaplony, Konstantinopel und Damaskus, pp. 353–9; Hoyland, Seeing Islam,
pp. 360–3; Flusin, Palestinian hagiography, pp. 216, 218.
4. There are earlier translations into Latin: Acta sanctorum. 9, pp. 360–2; and Russian: G. Destunis
in Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Мученичество (also containing the Greek text), for the Russian:
pp. 11–16.
5. Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 3, 18, 20, 226, 231.

Mélanges James Howard-Johnston, ed. by Phil Booth & Mary Whitby

(Travaux & mémoires 26), Paris 2022, pp. 385–406.
386 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

what we might call a fourth category of narratives that do not revolve around apostasy or
blasphemy per se, but focus on violent confrontations between Muslims and large groups
of Christians, often in military settings. Along with the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of
Jerusalem, this category includes the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Gaza (d. ca. late-630s),
the Passion of the Forty-two martyrs of Amorion (d. 842), and the Passion of the Twenty
martyrs of Mar Saba (d. 797, though not a military text).
At the outset, it is important to note that, in addition to BHG 1217, the subject of
this article, there is a later version of the Passion, BHG 1218, that also survives.6 Written
in Greek, probably in late-tenth or eleventh-century Palestine, it is much longer than
BHG 1217 and tells a substantially different story. Due to considerations of length, I will
not discuss it here other than to flag its existence and to note that it provides interesting
insights into the development of the martyrs’ cult in later periods.
The purpose of the following article is two-fold: first, to situate the Passion of the Sixty
martyrs in its literary and historical context in a manner that has not been done before, at
least to my satisfaction; and second, to provide the first English translation of the work.7
Although the Passion is a short text, it provides a fascinating window into a number
of important themes, including the history of Byzantine-Umayyad warfare (especially
memories of the Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–18), enduring sympathy for the
Byzantine Empire among Melkite Christians in the caliphate, and the phenomenon of
Syriac-to-Greek translation. For these and other reasons, I hope this article is a fitting way
to honour my colleague and former teacher, James Howard-Johnston, a devoted student
of both Byzantine and Islamic history.

II. The manuscript tradition and BnF Coislin 303

The Passion of the sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217) survives in a 10th-c. manuscript
at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Coislin 303.8 This is the single most important
manuscript for the Christian martyrdom narratives of the early Islamic period, at least
for those written in Greek, for along with the Passion of the Sixty martyrs, it also contains
the only known copy of the Passion of Elias of Helioupolis (d. 779) and the only known
Greek version of the Passion of the Twenty martyrs of Mar Saba (d. 797).9 Many of the
other works in the manuscript are also of Palestinian origin, including Lives of several
saints who lived before the rise of Islam (e.g., Theognius of Betylia, fl. 6th c.; George of
Choziba, d. early 7th c.) and non-martyr saints who lived after (e.g., Stephen the Sabaite,

6. Συλλογὴ, vol. 1, pp. 136–63; discussion in Yannopoulos, Légende.

7. Greek text in Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), pp. 1–7; with corrections
in Kurtz, review of Papadopoulos-Kerameus, pp. 316–17. This is the basis of the translation at the
end of the present article, which follows Papadopoulos-Kerameus’s pagination and division of the text.
8. For an overview of the contents of this manuscript, see Devreese, Catalogue, pp. 286–8. A
second copy made on the basis on the Paris manuscript is found in Brussels, Bibliothèque royale
Albert Ier, 188864–188874, copied by the Bollandists in the 17th or 18th c. See Van den Gheyn,
Catalogue, pp. 328–31.
9. See Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 53–9 (for Elias), pp. 204–5 n. 20 (for the Twenty martyrs)
with further bibliography. Note that an early Georgian translation of the Passion of the Twenty martyrs
also exists: Blake, Deux lacunes.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 387

d. 794). Coislin 303 is thus an important witness to the history of hagiographic writing
in Palestine as well as its dissemination in Byzantium during the post-conquest period.
André Binggeli has recently published a detailed study of the manuscript, arguing
that the codex was copied in Constantinople on the basis of an earlier model imported
from Palestine.10 This original codex may have been produced in or around Jerusalem
between the first half of the ninth c. and the beginning of the tenth. The circumstances
of the manuscript’s transfer to Byzantium are unclear, but we know there were many
Palestinian clergy who travelled to Constantinople during this period, as well as strong
contacts between the two Churches.11 Such exchanges provide as a plausible setting in
which the manuscript may have first made its way to Byzantium.
Binggeli identified two Constantinopolitan monasteries as likely places where
Coislin 303 was copied. The first is the Stoudios Monastery, a major centre of hagiographical
writing, where interest in a collection of saints’ Lives from Mar Saba or another prestigious
Palestinian foundation would have been high.12 The second is the Chora Monastery,
home to a number of prominent Palestinian émigrés, including the famous Michael
Synkellos, who was appointed hēgoumenos in the middle of the 9th c.13 Regardless of
where the manuscript was copied, however, it seems that its Palestinian contents were
supplemented with a group of texts added by the Constantinopolitan scribe, including
works by Maximus the Confessor, Ammonas, Peter the Monk, and Theodore Stoudios.14
Were it not for Coislin 303, we would know considerably less about the writing of
martyrdom narratives in early Islamic Palestine than we currently do. That being said,
the survival of the manuscript should not lead us to conclude that the Passions it contains
were particularly popular. Aside from a few references in liturgical calendars—and an
additional Georgian translation of the Passion of the Twenty martyrs of Mar Saba—the
new martyrs mentioned in the codex would be otherwise unknown to us.15 Indeed, it is
striking that the only surviving copies of two of the works, the Passion of the Sixty martyrs
of Jerusalem (BHG 1217) and the Passion of Elias of Helioupolis, come not from Syria-
Palestine, where the events took place, but from Byzantium.
That the texts survived at all is a testament to the close connection between the
Melkite community of Palestine and their co-religionists in Constantinople, but even
there, the martyrs cannot be said to have been widely known. Aside from Coislin 303,
it seems the martyrs were generally ignored in Byzantium. Binggeli attributes this to
the relatively low level of enthusiasm for Palestinian saints in Constantinople, possibly
because of Palestine’s increasingly peripheral status in the Byzantine cultural sphere as
well as the rise of Constantinople’s own saints in this period.16 As Binggeli and Stephanos

10. Binggeli, La réception; cf. Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 19–22.

11. Auzépy, Le rôle des émigrés; Binggeli & Efthymiadis, Vie et Passion de Bacchos, pp. 27–33.
12. Kazhdan, Talbot, & Cutler, Stoudios Monastery, with further bibliography.
13. On the Chora Monastery and its Eastern inhabitants, see Gouillard, Un « quartier » d’émigrés.
14. Binggeli, La réception, pp. 270-3.
15. Both Elias of Helioupolis and the Twenty martyrs of Mar Saba are mentioned in the famous
Palestinian-Georgian calendar, which reflects the liturgical practices of the Jerusalem church during the
10th c. (ed. Garitte pp. 48/151 [Elias, February 4th], 54/172 [Twenty martyrs, October 22nd]). A garbled
version of the story of the Twenty martyrs is also found in the 10th-c. Synaxarium of Constantinople,
ed. Delehaye p. 548.
16. Binggeli, La réception, p. 281.
388 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

Efthymiadis have recently shown, a rare exception is the martyr Bacchus (d. 786–7), a
young Christian from Maiouma in coastal Palestine who converted to Islam and then
returned to Christianity and became a monk, for which he was martyred. He became
the subject of elaborate hagiographical traditions in Byzantium, where his cult became
popular in a way that did not happen for almost any other Palestinian martyr.17
Aside from the Passion itself, the only evidence we have for the cult of the Sixty martyrs
comes from outside Byzantium. The Palestinian-Georgian calendar—compiled by John
Zosime in the tenth century and containing the sanctoral of the church of Jerusalem at the
time—notes a feast of the Sixty martyrs on October 21st (a day before the commemoration
in BHG 1217).18 A number of Melkite Arabic synaxaria dating to between the eleventh
and fourteenth centuries also mention a feast of Sixty-three martyrs on October 22nd.19
Finally, outside Islamic lands, there is a canon to the Sixty-three martyrs on October 21st
in an Italo-Greek menologion of the thirteenth century, which is dependent on the version
of events in BHG 1218.20

III. Date and author of the PASSION

What more can we say about the provenance of the Passion of the Sixty martyrs based
on the copy contained in Coislin 303? There is little internal evidence that can help
us date the Passion aside from the obvious point that it was written sometime after
ca. 724, when the martyrdom took place (for more on this, see below) and after the
death of the Byzantine emperor Leo III in 741 (the text refers to him as being “of sacred
memory” [ὁ τῆς ὁσίας μνήμης]). Another clue to the date of the composition may be the
flattering epithets it ascribes to Leo, e.g., “crowned by God” (τῷ θεοστέπτῳ) and “most
beloved of God and pious” (τὸν θεοφιλέστατον καὶ εὐσεβέστατον).21 These are significant
because Leo came to be remembered as the primary instigator of the first iconoclasm
in Byzantium (ca. 726–87), which was condemned as a heresy at the Second Council
of Nicaea in 787.22 Presuming the Palestinian monk who composed the Passion of the
Sixty martyrs was aware of theological controversies happening in Byzantium—by no
means a guarantee, I acknowledge, for he may not have heard about the decrees of the
council, much less heeded them—these flattering epithets may indicate that he wrote
the text sometime before Leo’s reputation was tarnished. This has led scholars, notably
Yannopoulos, to refer to the Passion of the Sixty martyrs as an “iconoclast” text.23 This label
strikes me as overly simplistic, however, for aside from the flattering way it speaks about

17. Binggeli & Efthymiadis, Vie et Passion de Bacchos, pp. 45–101; Binggeli, La réception,
pp. 281–3; generally, Efthymiadis, The Life of Bacchus; Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 62–8.
18. Calendrier palestino-géorgien, ed. Garitte pp. 98, 363–4; cf. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of
Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 7.9–10. Here and below, see Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 226–7.
19. Sauget, Premières recherches, pp. 310–11. “Sixty-three” reflects the number of martyrs given
in BHG 1218, per n. 108 below.
20. Analecta hymnica graeca, vol. 2 pp. 428–9.
21. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), pp. 2.29, 2.31 (“of sacred memory”, per
the sentence above], 3.14–15).
22. Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea.
23. Yannopoulos, Légende, pp. 163–4, 175–6. For a more measured approach, see Gero,
Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 128.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 389

Leo, the text has nothing to say about images, whether negatively or positively. This is in
sharp contrast to the later version of the Passion, BHG 1218, which can be described as
“iconophile” both because it condemns Leo as a heretic and because it speaks favourably
about images.24 Taken as a whole, the internal evidence suggests that the text was written
sometime between Leo’s death in 741 and his denunciation in 787, though a later date
is entirely possible.
What of the text’s compiler? At the end of the work, this figure identifies himself as
“John […] a simple monk who sits in my humble cell and reads.”25 John provides no
further information about himself, even the name of his monastery. Despite this, it seems
safe to assume that John lived somewhere in or around Jerusalem, for he explains that he
visited the grave of the martyrs, located near the church of St Stephen just north of the
Old City.26 He also makes no indication that he came from far away, e.g., on pilgrimage
from Byzantium. Based on the text and the manuscript from which it comes, it is also safe
to assume that John was a Melkite, that is, an adherent of the Chalcedonian (Dyothelete)
Church that remained in communion with Constantinople after the Arab conquests, whose
stronghold in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbasid periods was the patriarchate of Jerusalem
and its surrounding monasteries.27 We also know that the Melkites were great producers of
Christian martyrdom narratives at the time, a tradition to which John clearly contributed.28

IV. Language of the PASSION: from Syriac to Greek?

The most interesting detail about the circumstances of the composition comes from
just a few lines later, where John states the following:29
[…] μετὰ καὶ ἄλλων μαρτυρικῶν ὑπομνημάτων καὶ ταῦτα συριστὶ ἀνέγνων τῶν ἁγίων
ἑξήκοντα μαρτύρων τὰ ὑπομνήματα […] ἔδοξε τῇ ἐμῇ μετριότητι προτρέψασθαι τὸν
ἑλληνιστὶ ταῦτα μεταφράζοντα. Καὶ ὅση δύναμις μεταφράσας ὁ προτραπεὶς αἰτεῖται
μετ’ ἐμοῦ τῶν ἁγίων ἑξήκοντα μαρτύρων τὴν ἀντίληψιν […]
[…] I originally read these accounts of the sixty holy martyrs in the Syrian language, along
with other martyrs’ accounts […] In my humility, it seemed [fitting] to urge someone to
translate this account into Greek. Having translated as best he could, the one who was thus
urged now begs along with me for the help of the sixty holy martyrs […]
The passage is intriguing for several reasons. First, it indicates that there once existed
a recension of the text in a language other than Greek. Second, it describes the work as
belonging to a larger collection of martyrs’ Lives, the nature of which John leaves unclear.
Third, it states that John, while capable of reading the text, may have commissioned a
second individual, an anonymous translator, to render it into Greek (though this could
be a modest way of saying John did the translation himself ).30 The only point missing is

24. Passion of the Sixty-three martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), pp. 137–9.
25. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 7, § 12; cf. PmbZ 3147.
26. Bieberstein & Bloedhorn, Jerusalem, vol. 2, pp. 231–6.
27. For an overview, see Griffith, The Church of Jerusalem, among many other articles by Griffith.
28. Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 225–39.
29. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, in Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 7.13–22.
30. On this translator see PmbZ 11283.
390 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

why John ordered the translation at all, and here we can only speculate. As we shall see,
there was an active translation culture among Melkite Christians during the early Islamic
period, most of it aimed at making works in different languages accessible to the polyglot
monastic communities of the Holy Land (who used a babel of tongues for prayer as well
as conversation, from Greek and Arabic to Syriac, Georgian, Armenian, etc.).31 What
is more, as Cyril Mango famously remarked, early Islamic Palestine was the single most
active centre of Greek literary production in the Mediterranean during the 8th c., and the
translation of the Passion into Greek may reflect this.32
The key word in the passage is συριστὶ, which I have translated rather neutrally as
“Syrian”, a term with a variety of meanings in the late antique and early medieval periods.33
John could be referring to Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), a Western Aramaic dialect
that flourished among the predominantly Melkite population of Jerusalem, the Judean
desert, Transjordan, and the western Galilee between the fourth and eighth centuries.34
Although this fits the confessional, geographic, and chronological profile of the text rather
well, it is highly unlikely that the supposed Vorlage was in CPA. After all, in terms of
literature, CPA was mostly a language of translation from Greek, and exceptionally few
original works in CPA survive.35
It is much likelier that the text was originally written in Syriac, that is, the prestige
dialect of Eastern Aramaic first associated with the city of Edessa, which later became
widespread among Christians across the Near East, Central Asia, and beyond. Although
the Melkites of Palestine are usually linked with Greek and Arabic, there is ample
evidence of Syriac speakers and Syriac literary production within the community at
this time.36 St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai, for example, the great repository of
Melkite literature from the region, is home to a large collection of Syriac manuscripts,
including several from the early Islamic period.37 There is also the example of the famous
Arabophone bishop Theodore Abū Qurra (d. ca. 825), sometime resident of Mar Saba,
who in addition to his famous theological treatises in Arabic, claimed to have written
some thirty tracts against the Jacobites in Syriac (none of which survive).38 We also know
that two monks, Patricius and Abramius, translated the ascetical homilies of Isaac of
Nineveh (fl. post-650) from Syriac to Greek at Mar Saba in the late 8th c. These, in turn,
helped propel Isaac to fame in places such as Constantinople and Mt Athos.39 The other

31. For an overview, see Griffith, From Aramaic to Arabic; and more recently, Johnson,
Introduction, pp. 58-88.
32. Among others, see Mango, Greek culture.
33. Lampe, Patristic Greek lexicon, p. 1346. I would like to thank Scott Johnson and Jack Tannous
for answering my questions about CPA and Syriac.
34. For an introduction, see Brock, Christian Palestinian Aramaic.
35. Among the surviving works in CPA are a number of saints’ Lives originally written in Greek:
The Forty martyrs of the Sinai Desert.
36. Kaplony (Konstantinopel und Damaskus, p. 353) reflects the common misconception that
Melkites did not use Syriac when he assumes that the Syriac Vorlage must have been the work of a
Miaphysite—as if Syriac were a sectarian language in this period. For a correction, see Griffith, From
Aramaic to Arabic, p. 14.
37. Brock, Catalogue.
38. Theodore Abū Qurrah, p. 119.
39. Brock, Syriac into Greek.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 391

clear example of Syriac-to-Greek translation from the time is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-
Methodius, one of the most popular literary responses to the rise of Islam.40
This little-studied but significant world of Melkite Syriac and Syriac-to-Greek
translation offers a plausible context in which the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem
may have been written. Of course, the foregoing assumes that there was indeed a Syriac
Vorlage behind the Greek text. We cannot discount the possibility that John made up the
story of the translation in order to make the text look older than it actually was.41 There
are few obvious Syriacisms in the text,42 and if anything, the style is a fairly conventional
Greek resembling the later historical books of the Septuagint, such as the Book of
Maccabees.43 By the same token, this could also indicate that the translator was very
good at his job—adept at “Greeking” the now-lost Syriac original—but it could also be
evidence that no such version ever existed. Either way, like the other hypotheses outlined
above, this is impossible to prove.

V. Summary of the PASSION

Let us now turn to the contents of the Passion (BHG 1217). The modern editor of
the text, Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus, divided the work into twelve sections,
beginning with a short title, notable for its identification of the saints as “new martyrs”
(νέων μαρτύρων). This was a common designation for martyrs of the Islamic era (as well
as of iconoclasm and other later conflicts) in several languages, above all in Greek, used
in implicit contrast with the “old martyrs” killed under the pagan Roman emperors.44
Sections 1 and 2 of the text are fairly unremarkable, filled with boilerplate language about
the piety and virtue of the saints.45
The story commences in earnest in section 3, where we read how the Umayyad caliph
Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 96–9/715–17) plotted to attack the Byzantine Empire.46
After crossing into Roman territory with a huge army, he paused at an unnamed site,
presumably somewhere in Anatolia. In section 4, the emperor Leo III (r. 717–41) orders
his men to drown the Arab army by releasing a huge amount of water from surrounding
springs, presumably trapping them in the flood waters. Seeking relief, the caliph dispatches

40. Ubierna, The Apocalypse (Greek); cf. Greisiger, The Apocalypse (Syriac).
41. Gero (Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 178) also floated the idea that the story of the Syriac Vorlage
was made up.
42. One possible Semiticism is the rendering of the caliph’s name, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik,
as Σολομὼν ὁ τοῦ Ἀνακτοδούλου (Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem [BHG 1217], p. 2.16]).
“Σολομὼν” is standard Greek, but his patronymic “ὁ τοῦ Ἀνακτοδούλου” is a direct translation of the
Arabic “Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik” (δοῦλος, ʿabd = slave + ἄναξ, malik = king), suggesting that the author
or translator may have understood Arabic and possibly Syriac, a closely-related language. I have been
unable to find this version of the name elsewhere.
43. I owe this observation to Evgenios Iverites.
44. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 1. See Sahner, Old martyrs, pp. 94–7;
and now Métivier & Binggeli, Les nouveaux martyrs.
45. Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, pp. 176–7 believed that sections 1–2 were not an original part of
the Syriac Vorlage because they are full of biblical quotations, whereas such quotations are completely
missing from later sections.
46. On Sulaymān, see Eisener, Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik; Id., Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion;
PmbZ 7159.
392 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

a skilled eunuch to negotiate a truce. In section 5, the emperor and the eunuch strike a
deal whereby the Arab army is permitted to go free in exchange for allowing merchants
from both sides to conduct their business unharmed. The truce also stipulates that
Christians from Byzantium may go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land without facing
harassment or danger. The truce is described as lasting for seven years.
Section 6 occurs almost exactly seven years after the truce and introduces the martyrs
to the narrative. They are described as seventy nobles (ἄρχοντες) leading a huge band
of soldiers, slaves, weapons, and money to Palestine with the goal of venerating the
holy places and distributing alms to the poor (“more like […] a small commando
expedition than […] harmless pilgrims with palm branches”, in the words of Stephen
Gero).47 Unfortunately, they do not realise that their pilgrimage coincides exactly with
the expiration of the truce, for just as they return to Jerusalem from several outlying
monasteries, they are apprehended by the Arabs (section 7). The Arabs, in turn, imprison
the pilgrims in Caesarea, which is portrayed as the seat of an unnamed Umayyad governor
(the newly-founded city of al-Ramla was the actual capital of Palestine in this period).48
This governor, in turn, writes to an unnamed caliph asking for advice about how to deal
with them. The caliph advises the governor to invite the Christians to convert to Islam.
If they accept, he should take their weapons but allow them to keep their belongings. If
they refuse, he should have them tortured, crucified, and killed.
In section 8, the governor offers the Byzantines the chance to convert. The martyrs
refuse, proclaiming their belief in Christianity instead. The governor then tries to cajole
them with flattery, but failing in this, resorts to threats. When this does not work either,
he orders them to be killed. In section 9, three of the martyrs—George, John, and Julian,
the only ones identified by name—petition the governor not to kill them in Caesarea,
but in Jerusalem, presumably because of the honour this would bestow. In exchange,
the martyrs agree to hand over their possessions. They also pay fifteen nomismata to the
aforementioned John of Caesarea, whom they entrust with purchasing a plot of land in
which to bury them.
In section 10, the martyrs are brought to Jerusalem. Three of them die along the way
and a further seven succumb to cowardice and apostatise. Mirroring the fate of other
infidels in Christian texts across the centuries, the men are portrayed as succumbing to
extreme illness—in this case, dysentery—as a punishment for their unbelief, and this
eventually kills them over the coming days.49 The remaining sixty are crucified, shot with
arrows, and eventually die. In section 11, John of Caesarea purchases the plot of land for
the martyrs near the church of St Stephen—the first martyr in Christian history—thus a
fitting place for a new group of saints to be buried. The text also notes the institution of

47. Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 178.

48. Kaplony, Konstantinopel und Damaskus, p. 353. For historical background on Caesarea, see
Athamina, Caesarea; for a survey of the archaeological evidence, see Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic
transition, pp. 41–55, 317. For al-Ramla, see Honigmann, al-Ramla; Avni, Byzantine-Islamic transition,
pp. 159–90.
49. The heresiarch Arius (d. 336) is said to have died from an even more violent bowel illness:
Muehlberger, The legend. Nestorius (d. ca. 450), bishop of Constantinople and founder of the
eponymous “heretical” church, is said to have suffered a similar fate: John Moschos, The spiritual
meadow, transl. Wortley pp. 197–8. I thank Phil Booth for this reference.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 393

an annual feast of the martyrs on October 22nd. Section 12, the last and final, contains
the first-person testimony of the monk John, who says he commissioned the translation
of the account from Syriac to Greek. John also reports having visited the cemetery where
the saints were buried and having met people who were healed by their relics.

VI. The historical context of the PASSION

The text raises several interesting historical questions including, most importantly,
when did the events take place? If, for the sake of argument, we follow the internal
chronology of the work, then the original battle between the Byzantines and the Umayyads
must have occurred when both Leo and Sulaymān were in power. This leaves a fairly
narrow window between Leo’s accession as emperor on March 25th, 717 and Sulaymān’s
death on September 22nd/October 1st of the same year. What is more, if we assume that the
truce lasted for seven years, this would mean that the martyrs were apprehended between
March and September of 724, with their execution occurring sometime after (though
the text does not specify the duration of their imprisonment, meaning the martyrdom
could have happened in 725 or even later).50 If this is true, it suggests that the Umayyad
caliph who gave the orders for their death was probably Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, who
came to power in January 724.51
Of course, the foregoing rests on the assumption that the events in the Passion did
actually take place as described. But as Huxley has noted, there is no evidence in either
Islamic or Christian sources for a battle quite fitting the description that we find in
the Passion, nor is there any evidence for a seven-year truce.52 Andreas Kaplony and
Yannopoulos have gone to great lengths to try to show how the story could match details
of certain battles and agreements in the chronicles. Despite their careful research, however,
none of their proposals fully match the story in the Passion, and the evidence is at best
inconclusive.53 Ultimately, I agree with Huxley’s assessment that the mise-en-scène is at
least partly fictional.
I would add that the author, whether out of ignorance of events or a desire to spin a
tall story, fashioned a hagiographical account with two historical models in mind. The
first was the aforementioned naval siege of Constantinople, launched by Sulaymān ibn
ʿAbd al-Malik and commanded by his half-brother, the general Maslama (d. 121/738).54
The attack began in July or August 717, shortly before Sulaymān’s death in September or
October of that year. The siege continued until August 718 when it was finally thwarted
by the Byzantines. By contrast, the battle as described in the Passion must be set in
Anatolia—for the Arab army is shown crossing by land, and Constantinople is nowhere
in sight.55 If it has a basis in reality, it may reflect the fact that the real Arab army passed
through Anatolia in 716 before crossing the Hellespont into Thrace (717) and then
began its siege of the capital. While in Anatolia, the Arabs and the Byzantines are known

50. Here, I concur with the chronology laid out in Yannopoulos, Légende, p. 166.
51. Gabrieli, Hishām.
52. Huxley, The Sixty martyrs, pp. 371–2.
53. Kaplony, Konstantinopel und Damaskus, pp. 353-9; Yannopoulos, Légende, pp. 176–85.
54. For recent bibliography, see Christides, The second Arab siege; Imbert, Graffiti arabes.
55. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 2, § 3.
394 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

to have engaged in a number of battles, including at Amorion, Pergamon, and Sardis.

It may be that the land battle described in the Passion is a distorted reflection of one of
these clashes. If so, the key difference between reality and the Passion is that Leo was not
emperor at the time, but rather, the stratēgos, or supreme commander of the Byzantine
army (he would accede to the throne later in 717). Later sources, especially those from
the caliphate, confuse the chronology of his accession, which could be reflected in the
Passion, too. The story of the flood could also be a garbled allusion to the naval blockade of
Constantinople and the maritime context of the conflict. Leo’s trickery is also a common
theme in accounts of events between 716 and 718, and the Passion may be channelling this
with the detail about the flood.56 There were extensive traditions that grew up around the
siege of Constantinople, many of them legendary, so it is easy to imagine how they could
have influenced the compiler of the Passion in one way or another.57 By the same token,
it is also easy to imagine how the compiler, living far from Constantinople in Palestine
and many years after the siege, lacked a full picture of what had actually happened (not
to mention knowledge of the topography in Anatolia).58
The second context may be the famous epistolary exchange between Leo III, the
emperor mentioned in the Passion, and Sulaymān’s successor, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
(r. 99–101/717–20). These traditions, which are preserved in a variety of languages,
employ the same basic topos of high-level contact and rivalry between Byzantine and
Umayyad rulers. What is more, as Cecilia Palombo has recently argued, the traditions
about Leo and ʿUmar seem to have emerged among Arabic-speaking Melkite Christians
in the monasteries of Syria-Palestine during the 8th c., precisely the milieu that gave
rise to the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem, as well.59 While the two texts are
very different—the one being an epistolary exchange serving as a vehicle for theological
polemics, the other being a straightforward martyrdom account—they evince a common
set of interests and dramatis personae born of an era of intensive Arab-Byzantine warfare.
It, in turn, may help us locate the Passion in a clearer historical and literary context.
Another interesting detail in the Passion is the alleged truce, which made provision for
the safe passage of merchants and pilgrims between Byzantium and the caliphate.60 Even
if the story is fictional, as appears likely, one is tempted to see this detail as a reflection
of real-world concerns in the mid-8th c. Indeed, the Passion seems to imply that both
commerce and pilgrimage were at risk of being cut off due to frequent frontier warfare,
much as described here. Historically, however, it is important to balance this impression of
fear with the robust evidence for continued trade and pilgrimage throughout the period,
as scholars such as Alice-Mary Talbot and Koray Durak have shown.61
Another issue to resolve is the origin of the Passion. Huxley argued that the text was
nothing more than a dramatic retelling of an earlier Islamic-era martyrdom story, the
Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Gaza.62 This text, probably written originally in Greek but

56. Kaplony, Konstantinopel und Damaskus, pp. 354–5 also entertains this possibility.
57. Canard, Les expéditions des Arabes.
58. A similar point is made by Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 177.
59. Palombo, The correspondence of Leo III.
60. Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), p. 3.18–22.
61. Talbot, Byzantine pilgrimage, p. 100 (on the Sixty martyrs); Durak, Commerce.
62. Huxley, The Sixty martyrs, pp. 372–4.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 395

surviving only in Latin translation, tells the story of a Byzantine garrison captured by
the Arabs during the conquest of Palestine in the late 630s.63 After refusing to convert to
Islam, ten of the Byzantine soldiers were martyred in Jerusalem, followed by an additional
fifty in Eleutheropolis. The famous patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius (d. 638), takes
an active role in the story, exhorting the martyrs not to abandon their Christian faith.
There are obvious parallels between the two works, starting with the basic number of the
martyrs, the mise-en-scène of Byzantine-Arab warfare, the occurrence of the executions
in Palestine, and the location of the burials (at least for a portion of the Gaza martyrs)
at the Church of St Stephen.
Upon closer inspection, however, I would argue that the differences between the texts
may outstrip their similarities. The Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Gaza is set during the
conquest era in Palestine while the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem is set during
a period of Byzantine-Umayyad warfare in Anatolia and Constantinople. The former
accords a large role to Sophronius, while there is no similar character in the latter (save,
perhaps, for John of Caesarea, the man who secures a cemetery for the martyrs and who
is described as archbishop in BHG 1218). The former mentions wives and children of the
saints, while the latter mentions only their military retinue. The former moves back and
forth between Gaza, Jerusalem, and Eleutheropolis, while the latter between Anatolia,
Jerusalem, and Caesarea. The former states that the martyrs were beheaded, while the
latter specifies that they were shot with arrows and crucified. The former identifies all
the saints by name, while the latter, as we have seen, names only three of them. Finally,
the former has none of the Biblical quotations of the latter, indeed, it lacks comparable
hagiographical flourishes altogether.
It is undeniable that the two texts belong to the same genre and probably originate
in the same Palestinian Christian milieu (though the date of the Passion of the Sixty
martyrs of Gaza is hard to pin down, owing to the fact that it survives only in a later Latin
translation, the earliest copy of which is in an 11th-c. manuscript). That being said, I
would not go so far as Huxley to argue that the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem is
a reworking of the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Gaza. Such a hypothesis is impossible to
prove, and if anything, a close reading of the two texts suggests that it may not be the case.
Rather, I would see the two texts as attempts to adapt the genre of the collective military
martyrdom—made famous by earlier works such as the Passion of the Forty martyrs of
Sebaste (d. 320)—to the new circumstances created by the Arab conquests.64 In this, the
Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem strikes me as a fully original work that at the same
time is indebted to those that came before it, like the vast majority of hagiographical texts.
Yannopoulos says something similar by leaving open the possibility that the author of
the Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem was inspired by the Passion of the Sixty martyrs
of Gaza without slavishly reproducing it—a hypothesis that also seems plausible to me.65

63. There are two versions of the story, the first an account of the martyrdom of the whole group
and the second an account focusing on a character named Florianus (to be identified with Sophronius?)
and his companions. See Passio sanctorum sexaginta martyrum. For overview with further bibliography,
see Woods, The Passion.
64. Sebaste, the Forty martyrs of, in The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 1487.
65. Yannopoulos, Légende, pp. 185–6.
396 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

VII. The purpose and audience of the PASSION

One final issue to address is the purpose of the text. Why was it written and for whom?66
Based on the identity of its author, John, we should assume that the immediate audience
consisted of fellow Greek-speaking monks in Palestine. Along with them, we can also
assume a wider Palestinian Christian public, made up of clergy and laity, who would
have heard the story of the martyrs’ deaths on their feast day or while on pilgrimage to
their shrine, as we see described in the final section of the work (12).
The Passion of the Sixty martyrs offers a fascinating window into the mentality of its
Palestinian author who, despite living roughly a century after the Arab conquests, still
felt the magnetic pull of Byzantium as a political and spiritual force. Huxley may have
been a bit too dramatic when he described this author as inhabiting “the embittered
world of the dhimmis” or as “invent[ing] an atrocity in order to give vent to his hatred
[of Arabs]”.67 But the idea that the author found the sufferings of Byzantine nobles
heroic and worthy of commemoration reflects the abiding appeal of Byzantium among
certain post-Byzantine Christians, especially the Melkites of the Holy Land. Given the
strong ties between this community and Byzantium, as well as the strongly pro-Byzantine
orientation of the work, we cannot discount the possibility that the Passion was written for
a Byzantine audience. Although the work eventually made its way to Constantinople in
the form of Coislin 303, could we imagine a much earlier Byzantine audience for whom
it was written in the eighth century? This audience would have been drawn to the story
for many of the same reasons as their Palestinian counterparts, namely its portrayal of
Leo’s victory over Sulaymān and the tragic-heroic aftermath of the battle in the deaths
of the Sixty martyrs. This remains a matter of speculation, but we should not rule it out.
For their part, what did the audience of the text gain from it? The Passion does not
hold out hope of a “Christian liberator to come from Romania”, as Huxley seemed to
imply.68 In contrast to other Christian texts of the period, the Passion offers no promise
of a Byzantine reconquest of Islamic lands or a Muslim ruler converting to Christianity
and redeeming the caliphate, as I have discussed elsewhere.69 But the text does present
Byzantium as a place to which Melkites belonged despite the ruptures imposed by the
7th c. In the martyrs, the text offers muscular models of resistance to Islam, images of men
who would rather die for their faith and empire than join their Arab captors and remain
alive. This message would have surely resonated for many Christians living under Muslim
rule, who saw the world around them being transformed by the effects of conversion
and by the emergence of a new social and political order oriented around Islam. In this
world, Christians were no longer the dominant group as they had been in Byzantine times,
but one of a variety of subaltern communities in a new religious and political cosmos
dominated by Muslims. In this sense, the Passion of the Sixty martyrs was not so different
from many other examples of the martyrdom genre in the period.

66. I deal with this question for the larger corpus of martyrdom narratives in Sahner, Christian
martyrs, pp. 199–240.
67. Huxley, The Sixty martyrs, pp. 373-4; cf. Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 47.
68. Huxley, The Sixty martyrs, p. 374.
69. Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 105–13, with further bibliography.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 397

Yet there may be a more specific message here, too, about the mounting military
tensions between Byzantium and the caliphate in the early eighth century, occasioned by
the siege of Constantinople and other less-spectacular battles along the frontier occurring
nearly every year.70 Christian communities in Palestine were relative bystanders to these
events, but texts such as the Passion of the Sixty martyrs may have served an important
role in making them feel like players in this military struggle between the two empires.
That these conflicts occurred at the precise time when confessional boundaries between
Christianity and Islam were becoming sharper may also be significant. Thus, the Passion of
the Sixty martyrs is a hagiographic monument to an especially intensive era of Byzantine–
Umayyad warfare. But it is also a product of a world in which Christians and Muslims
increasingly related to each other as competitors, no longer as wary compatriots of a
shared monotheistic community, as Fred Donner has argued was true for much of the
7th c.71 In such a world, the audience of the Passion may have found this tale of conflict,
of crisply-drawn lines between two religions, two communities, and two empires very
appealing, indeed, resonant with their experience on the ground.

Appendix – Translation of THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM

(BHG 1217)

The martyrdom of the sixty holy new martyrs72 who were martyred p. 1
in the holy city of Christ our God during the tyranny of the Arabs

1.73 Beloved, those who have soberly meditated upon the law of our Lord God day
and night and kept it unwaveringly shall be guided towards the straight path of Christ
our God and walk in his truth. For they listen to the divinely-inspired David sing,
“I have run the way of your commandments, when you did enlarge my heart”;74 and the
Lord of knowledge say, “Examine the scriptures and you shall find rest for your souls.”75
Moreover, “Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall
be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and [everyone] who seeks finds, and
it shall be opened to whomever knocks.”76 Furthermore, “Whomever comes to me I shall
not cast out.”77

70. Haldon & Kennedy, The Arab-Byzantine frontier; generally, see now Eger, The Islamic-
Byzantine frontier.
71. Donner, Muhammad, pp. 194–224; also Tannous, The making of the medieval Middle East.
72. τῶν ἁγίων ἑξήκοντα νέων μαρτύρων: On this terminology, see above, n. 44.
73. On whether sections 1–2 may have been added later, see above, n. 45.
74. Psalm 119:32. As Gero notes (Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 176), despite the claim that the Passion
was translated from Syriac, all of the biblical quotations come from the standard Greek text and are
not obviously translated from the Pshīṭtā or another Syriac version.
75. Cf. John 5:39, Matthew 11:29.
76. Matthew 7:7–8.
77. John 6:37.
 398 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

Hence, those sixty holy, commandment-loving, unconquerable martyrs of Christ

our God shine with nobility as being descended from noble blood,78 such nurslings of
piety born of most Christian and virtue-loving parents. And having meditated upon the
sacred scriptures and applied themselves with exactitude from a young age, guided by the
Holy Spirit, they sang among themselves, “The Lord is my light and my saviour, whom
shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”79 And also,
“I shall not fear evil, for you are with me”,80 since “the sufferings of the present age are
not worthy of the glory which is destined to be revealed to us.”81
p. 2 2. Having grown up with such an education, they held onto the word of life “like stars
shining in the world.”82 They advanced in virtues and dazzled with good deeds, adorning
themselves with chastity as well as virginity of body. They adorned their manners with
spiritual virtues so that the scripture-saying would be fulfilled, “Thus, let your light shine
forth before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is
in heaven.”83
For, being full of good deeds and acts of mercy [that] arise from piety and orthodoxy,
they were deemed worthy of the martyrs’ crowns of justice,84 proclaimed heirs of the
kingdom of heaven, and justly declared partners of those who are well-pleasing to the
Lord across the ages. As a result of this, through their sacred memorials and yearly feasts,85
the Lord has been glorified and shall be glorified for ages unto ages.
3. In the early days of the tyranny of the Arabs, there set out a certain tyrant by the
name of Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik,86 who wished to devise an attack against the people,
plunder the kingdom of the Romans and the most Christian race, and take everyone
captive according to his will and intention.87 Therefore, with all zeal, he readied his army,
including battlefield commanders and champions in single combat,88 archers and captains,
and levied as great a host of infantry as he could. He also brought weapons of every kind,
by which I mean swords and spears, bucklers and breast plates, helmets and greaves,
bows and arrows, shields and slings. And having assembled the other instruments of war,
he set off on his march. Coming to a certain place in Roman territory, he immediately
ordered the army to rest, supposing it was necessary to exercise the troops. While this was

78. ὡς ἐξ ἀρχοντικοῦ αἵματος καταγόμενοι: This echoes the description of the martyrs as “nobles”
(ἄρχοντες) in section 6 below.
79. Psalm 27:1.
80. Psalm 23:4.
81. Romans 8:18.
82. Cf. Philippians 2:15.
83. Matthew 5:16.
84. Cf. 2 Timothy 4:8.
85. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ταῖς τούτων ἱεραῖς μνήμαις καὶ ἐτησίοις ἑορταῖς: Anticipating information
below about the martyrs’ feast in section 11.
86. Σολομὼν ὁ τοῦ Ἀνακτοδούλου: On this figure and the spelling of his name, possibility a
Semiticism, see nn. 42, 46.
87. The version of the story in BHG 1218 does not mention a battle or a truce. Instead it substitutes
an account of the origins of iconoclasm and the deposition of the patriarch Germanus; see Passion
of the Sixty-three martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), pp. 138–9; Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 177.
88. μονομάχους: See Lampe, Patristic Greek lexicon, p. 882.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 399

happening, news about him was reported to the emperor of the Romans, who is crowned
by God,89 and what things were being attempted.
4. Learning of this, Leo of sacred memory90 ordered [his troops] to blockade the
wretch from all sides with a huge amount of water [which they released] by pouring the p. 3
waters of the springs flowing nearby and far away.91 When this was accomplished with
great speed and when he was about to be in great danger of total catastrophe befalling
him, the pernicious and lawless tyrant was at a loss for what to do. Therefore, a certain
eunuch—who was the most intelligent and cunning of Sulaymān’s guards and devoted
servants92—seeing him consumed by perplexity and distress, asked for him to be ordered
to go before the emperor. [His plan was] that, by cleverness and crafty means, he would
set him free from the crushing agony and deliver him from the watery surroundings and
the blockade of moats. Knowing the eunuch’s intelligence by experience and becoming
exceedingly glad, [the caliph] dispatched him, commanding him to propose agreeable
terms to the emperor and to carry out all that he demanded.
5. The aforementioned envoy went before the most beloved-of-God and pious
emperor.93 With many supplications, the ambassador, being most resourceful and most
cunning, persuaded the most kindly and compassionate emperor and arranged a peace
treaty lasting for seven years. [The agreement stipulated] that he would release the tyrant
unharmed and that merchants would circulate in the jurisdictions and provinces of both
sides undisturbed and unhindered.94 [It also stipulated that] whoever wished to venerate
the sites that had been trodden by Christ our God would be unmolested and unharmed.95
Having fixed [the terms of the agreement] with oaths and confirmed one another with
steadfast agreements regarding these matters, they parted ways.
Then, having held back the waters from all sides, they released the tyrant from Roman
territory without any harassing attack or damaging operation. Naturally, considering an
amnesty such as this to be a godsend, merchants came from both sides and did business,
with no one hindering them at all. And many [Romans] came with right intentions to
venerate the Holy Land—by which I mean the revered sites of Christ our God—like
deer running swiftly to springs of water.96

89. τῷ θεοστέπτῳ: On this and other flattering epithets of Leo III, see above n. 21. In BHG 1218,
by contrast, Leo is routinely described as (most) impious, sacrilegious (ἀσεβῶς, ἀσεβέστατος), see
Passion of the Sixty-three martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), pp. 137.14–15, 138.19, etc.
90. ὁ τῆς ὁσίας μνήμης: Suggesting that the text was written sometime after Leo had died. See
above, n. 21.
91. I think what is envisioned here is that the Byzantines damned nearby streams to divert water
towards the Arab army.
92. τῶν ὑπασπιστῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ γνησίων παίδων.
93. τὸν θεοφιλέστατον καὶ εὐσεβέστατον βασιλέα: See above, n. 21.
94. ὅπως συναναστραφῶσιν οἱ ἔμποροι ταῖς ἀμφοτέρων ἐξουσίαις τε καὶ ἐπαρχίαις ἀνενόχλητοι
καὶ ἀπερίσπαστοι: On commerce along the Arab-Byzantine frontier in this period, see n. 61.
95. On Byzantine pilgrimage to Palestine in this period, see n. 61.
96. Cf. Psalm 42:1–2.
 400 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

p. 4 6. In the seventh year of the agreed period, seventy [Roman] lords97 readied themselves,
aiming to venerate those sites which are worthy of love.98 Setting off with horse-drawn
chariots, various weapons, appropriate slave escorts, and a great deal of money, they
accomplished their journey safely and arrived at Jerusalem. Once they had venerated the
holy sites and consecrated offerings at them, they donated to the poor most of the supplies
that they carried with them.99 They then made the round of all the sacred monasteries
of the desert, having laid out the requisite charitable meals.100 And having received the
heaven-traversing prayers of the holy fathers as supplies for the journey, they endeavoured
to return to their homeland, to their kinsmen, and friends. But not realising that the
determined period of seven years had come to an end, they went down to the spring of
Koloneia, located three miles from the holy city of Christ our God.101
7. The Arabs, meanwhile, who were in the Holy City, compelled by envy which arises
from every intrusion of the Adversary [i.e., Satan]—since he always raises war against us,
admitting no truce—they turned to counting the determined period. Realising that the
end of the truce had come, they chased after the saints all together. Laying hold of them,
they said that the period of respite [upon which they had agreed] was completed.102 Turning
the saints back to Jerusalem, they threw them into prison while writing about them to
the governor in Caesarea, who was master of all of Palestine at that time103 and who held
authority over it. They sent him a message, explaining that the determined time that had
been promised was completed. He wrote back, ordering the saints to be sent along to him.

97. ἄρχοντες: See Lampe, Patristic Greek lexicon, pp. 241–2; cf. above n. 78.
98. BHG 1218 claims that the martyrs hailed from Ikonion (modern Konya) in southern Anatolia
and that they embarked on their pilgrimage in order to escape Leo’s iconoclasm. Neither detail is reflected
in BHG 1217: Passion of the Sixty-three martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), pp. 137.26, 138.16–17.
99. BHG 1218 lists the sites the martyrs visited during their pilgrimage: Passion of the Sixty-three
martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), pp. 140–1.
100. καὶ τὰς πρεπώδεις ἀγάπας τελέσαντες: Lit: “having laid out the requisite love-feasts”.
101. On the location of this site to the west of the Old City of Jerusalem, see Finkelstein &
Gadot, Mozah, pp. 227–9.
102. The text is laconic on this point, but is it possible that the Arabs regarded the Byzantine
pilgrims as spies? Gero, Byzantine iconoclasm, p. 178, thought so; this would match a trope in other
martyrdom narratives of the period, where Christians are frequently accused of conducting espionage
for the Byzantines: Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 231–2.
103. γράψωσι περὶ αὐτῶν τῷ Καισαρείας συμβούλῳ, πάσης Παλαιστίνης τὸ τηνικάδε κυριεύοντι:
This detail has a whiff of unreality to it. As discussed above (n. 48), the capital of Palestine in this period
was not Caesarea, but al-Ramla, located 45 miles to the south and further inland.
BHG 1217 does not identify the governor by name, though BHG 1218 calls him “Solomon,
surnamed Milchēn (Μιλχὴν)” (Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem [BHG 1218], p. 143.28–9];
cf. PmbZ 7161). This is a strange detail, probably a corruption of the name of the caliph given in
BHG 1217, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (see above, nn. 42 and 46), but transposed onto the governor.
I have not been able to securely identify an Umayyad governor of Palestine during the early- to
mid-720s. The closest is a governor who was active during the reign of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
(99–101/717–20)—Naḍr ibn Yarīm ibn Maʿdikarib ibn Abraha ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ—though it is not
clear whether this Naḍr was still in his post by the time the martyrs reached Palestine. See Khalīfa ibn
Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, ed. al-ʿUmarī p. 323; transl. Wurtzel & Hoyland p. 201; also Crone, Slaves on horses,
pp. 94–5, 127.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 401

When they had reached the metropolis of the Caesareans, he shut them up in the
public prison. Straightaway, he wrote in detail about them to the caliph,104 who wrote
the following message in reply, “Offer [for them] to apostatise from the religion of the
Christians.105 If they obey, we shall give orders to take their weapons along with their
horses, but allow them to keep their possessions, meaning their slaves, mules, and other
goods. But if they prove disobedient and persist in their own religion, we order you to p. 5
torture, kill, and finally crucify them.”
8. The governor of Caesarea, having received the foregoing instructions, led them
out of the prison and read aloud the tyrant’s command to the servants of God. Having
heard this, they simultaneously replied and cried aloud in a single voice, as if from one
mouth, “We are Christians and we shall by no means repudiate the orthodox faith of
our fathers! That is to say, we believe in worshipping the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
we revere the Trinity, made of the same substance,106 the single divinity in these three
individual properties, in which we were baptised for the remission of sins. We also look
forward to the resurrection from the dead, eternal life to come, and recompense for our
deeds. This is the true confession, and aside from this faith there is no truth. Behold,
today we are before you, and so are our goods. Do to our bodies whatever you have been
commanded. But as for our souls, over which you have no power, we entrust them to
the hands of God!”
Having heard these things, the exarch of Caesarea used flattery, adulation, and various
clever tricks and attempted to frighten them with threats. But not being able to persuade
the saints to apostatise from believing in Christ, he ordered them to be tortured, to die
by the sword, and [finally] to be crucified.107
9. Three of the saints then came to him, the famous George, John, and Julian,108 saying,
“As for all the visible things we possessed, they are yours, as being under your control.
But we also have things that lie hidden away which—since we shall not disclose [where
they are]—you shall not control. Therefore, if you yield to our demands, we shall disclose
[these] to you and they shall all belong to you without liability.”
Answering, the governor said in reply, “And what are your demands?” The saints
George, John, and Julian answered him, saying, “We request you to bring us back to

104. πρωτοσύμβουλον: A standard early term for “caliph” in Greek, including in early papyri and
literary sources; cf. Lampe, Patristic Greek lexicon, p. 1201. On the possible identity of this caliph, see
above, n. 46.
105. As is well known, there are very few instances of forced conversion of Jews, Christians, and
Zoroastrians (the so-called “dhimmī communities”) in the early Islamic period, though there was debate
about the permissibility of forcibly converting prisoners of war: Friedmann, Tolerance, pp. 115–20.
106. τὴν ὁμοoύσιον τριάδα: The key Trinitarian formulation of the Council of Nicaea (325).
107. Crucifixion was a characteristic form of punishment in the Umayyad period, see Anthony,
Crucifixion; Sahner, Christian martyrs, pp. 170–5.
108. Note the disparity with the names of the three leaders given in BHG 1218: Passion of the Sixty-
three martyrs of Jerusalem (BHG 1218), p. 146.22, Theodoulus, Eusebius, and David; and p. 169, § 29,
which gives the names of all sixty-three martyrs. They are probably referred to as “famous” (ἀοίδιμοι)
here because they may have been the leaders of the group.
 402 CHRISTIAN C. SAHNER

Jerusalem and to fulfill the commands given to you by your king [i.e., to martyr us] before
p. 6 the gate where the tower of the prophet David was established.”109
The governor nodded his assent to their request. They then handed over their
possessions to him, both the visible and the hidden, except for fifteen nomismata, which
they gave to John, a pious man from Caesarea who seemed suitable to carry out their
desire. They said to him, “Brother John, by the mercy of divine succour, we hoped that,
in going up to Jerusalem according to the command of the ethnarch,110 there would be
granted to us firm resolve in the face of tortures and we would be deemed worthy of
martyrs’ crowns there. You, therefore, take this ministry upon yourself and purchase a
plot just for us in which our remains may be placed until the time when the one who has
fashioned us commands, the general resurrection takes place, as well as the recompense for
the deeds of each person. By the mercies of the God who loves men, we have confidence
that you will enjoy your wages.”
10. Therefore, the saints were then carried off from Caesarea to Jerusalem by the
command of the governor, according to their desire. But as the saints were being brought
up to Jerusalem, three of them died along the way. When the time came for them to be
crucified alive, cowardice set upon seven pitiable and foolish [men] among them. Having
apostatised, they fell ill with dysentery on the same day. Within a few days, they died,
the wretched having lost out in both the present age and the one to come.111
Meanwhile, the holy martyrs of Christ were crucified alive with the greatest and [most]
unimaginable torments. They were also wounded severely by arrows [fired] by soldiers
from every direction, until not a single spot on their bodies was left unharmed. Thus, they
gave their souls into the hands of God while rejoicing. [In this] they were imitating the
saints and heads of the apostles, Peter and Paul, as well as those who poured forth their
precious blood on behalf of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who is our true God, and on behalf of
the noble profession [of faith]. They gave thanks to Christ [our] God—who deemed them
worthy to drink the cup which he himself drank voluntarily on our behalf112—to him
p. 7 who showed forth his own resurrection from the dead for our salvation and regeneration.
11. John, the most beloved of God, then went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem and
purchased a plot in the area outside the gates near the Church of St Stephen,113 of which
the saints had desired to be neighbours. After a few days, he asked for the bodies of the
sixty holy martyrs to be taken down. He laid them in the aforementioned plot for their
glorification and for [the purposes of ] an annual feast, which was celebrated by the people
of Jerusalem, guarded by God, on the twenty-first of October114 for the good pleasure of
God, to whom be glory and power for ages unto ages. Amen!

109. Located on the west side of the city and today also known as the Jaffa Gate.
110. ἐθνάρχου: Referring to the ruler of a specific ἔθνος, “nation, people”, clearly the Arabs in this
context (Lampe, Patristic Greek lexicon, p. 407).
111. On this scene, see n. 49.
112. Cf. Matthew 26:39, Mark 10:38–9, Luke 22:42, John 18:11, etc.
113. On the location of this site, located a few hundred yards north of the Old City of Jerusalem,
see n. 26; a subset of the Sixty martyrs of Gaza was also buried near the church: Passio sanctorum
sexaginta martyrum, p. 302.
114. On the different days given for the feast of the martyrs, see nn. 18–19.
 THE PASSION OF THE SIXTY MARTYRS OF JERUSALEM (BHG 1217) 403

12. I, John, am a simple monk who sits in my humble cell and reads.115 I originally
read these accounts of the sixty holy martyrs in the Syrian language, along with other
martyrs’ accounts. After some time, upon entering Jerusalem to venerate the holy sites,
I asked about the cemetery of the saints. I then came down to the plot [where they were
buried] and embraced the holy relics of the saints with reverence, believing that cures
are performed through them, as it was said to me by those who had benefited [from
their intercession]. In my humility, it seemed [fitting] to urge someone to translate this
account into Greek. Having translated as best he could, the one who was thus urged
now begs along with me for the help of the sixty holy martyrs, as well as the wages for
the compunction aroused in those who hear these accounts, from God through their
intercessions. And with them may the Lord and the all-merciful God grant us a portion
and an inheritance on the day of judgement. May it be so, amen.

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 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS
Walter Beers, A Miaphysite subalternity? John of Ephesus, the Jafnids, and the villages
of the Ḥawrān pp. 23–44
This paper presents a case, informed by the historiography of subaltern studies, for the interrelated
socioeconomic significance of the Jafnid family of Arab phylarchs and of the sixth-century Miaphysite
church for the largely rural region of southern Syria/northern Jordan known as the Ḥawrān. It begins
with a close reading of John of Ephesus’ “Life of Thomas the Armenian”, exploring its relevance
for understanding the effects of Justinianic policy in the eastern border provinces. It then presents
three strands of evidence for the situation in the Ḥawrān: 1) the information provided by John of
Ephesus about the phylarch al-Mundhir b. al-Ḥārith; 2) the 137 subscriptions to the 569/70 “Letter
from the abbots of Arabia” surviving in the so-called anti-tritheist dossier; 3) archaeological evidence
for village life in the Ḥawrān. It is argued that the presence of large numbers of Miaphysite monks
and minor clergy in the region, and the patronage offered to the struggling Miaphysite church by
the Jafnid family, may have provided the peasantry of the Ḥawrān with a means of defence against
the encroachments of aggressively acquisitive urban elites. A conjunction of mutually beneficial
self-interest would thus have offered the Jafnids a weapon against regional rivals; the Miaphysite
clergy a committed constituency and sources of economic support in the region’s village churches;
and the independent peasants of the Ḥawrān a discursive expression of resistance to aristocratic
accumulation.

Phil Booth, Egypt under the Sasanians (619–29): “stability, continuity, and tolerance”?
pp. 233–58
In the past two decades revisionist scholarship on the Sasanian occupation of the Roman Near
East (603–29) has undermined previous constructions of the period, replacing a model of destruction
and decline with one of broad continuity and even vitality. Arguing from the perspective of Egyptian
evidence—and in particular its rich papyrological record, which includes documents composed
by the conquerors in their own language, Pahlavi—this paper revisits this more recent model.
It first points to significant complications around the dominant understanding of the course of
the invasion in 618–20, including the contention that violence was restricted to the conquest. In
the central sections it explores the nature of the Sasanian occupation and its fiscal and economic
impact, highlighting significant gaps in our understanding, and the probable variation of that
impact upon the conquered according to a range of contextual factors. As a conclusion, it takes
aim at the notion that Persian rule was “tolerant” of existing Christian communities, and points to
scattered evidence for the interference of the conquerors in patriarchal and episcopal life, as well as
for popular resistance to their rule.

Sebastian Brock, The emperor Maurice through East Syriac eyes pp. 259–69
A Syriac Narrative concerning the death of the emperor Maurice was published in 1910 by
François Nau. Of East Syriac provenance, this shares certain features with the legends surrounding
Maurice’s death that are first found in Theophylact Simocatta and Ps.-John of Antioch. After a

Mélanges James Howard-Johnston, ed. by Phil Booth & Mary Whitby

(Travaux & mémoires 26), Paris 2022, pp. 781–92.
782 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

brief introduction, the Syriac Narrative is provided with a translation, followed by discussion of its
relationship to other sources and of its probable dating. An appendix gives a translation of the section
on Maurice to be found in the Syriac Life of Sabrishoʿ, catholicos of the Church of the East (596–604).

Jean-Claude Cheynet, Les étrangers (Bulgares, Arméniens, Francs), ciment de l’aristocratie

micrasiatique au XI e siècle ? pp. 617–32
The composition of the Anatolian aristocracy changed in Asia Minor under the influence of Basil
II and his successors. It can be better understood today because of the discovery of numerous seals
over several decades that reveal the military organization of the empire’s eastern frontier during the
11th c. Members of the former Bulgarian royal family entered into alliances with the great traditional
lineages at the behest of the emperors and were given commanding positions on the eastern frontier.
Armenian princes, more or less forced to give up their domains in exchange for others in Anatolia,
were given important responsibilities in the fight against the Turks. Finally, Frankish officers were
also given commanding positions in Anatolia. This development confirms the conclusions once
proposed by James Howard-Johnston. This policy proved effective in preventing major rebellions
in the East, but may have weakened the cohesion of provincial populations against the Turks.

Jeffrey Michael Featherstone & Juan Signes Codoñer, Tales from the Palace?
Ten episodes in the Ps-Symeon and their possible connexion with Basil Lecapenus
and the historiographical atelier of Constantine VII pp. 633–52
We discuss here ten episodes transmitted by the so-called Chronicle of the Pseudo-Symeon which,
on account of textual similarities, appear to come from a common source within the Palace. The
first two, also transmitted in Book VI of Theophanes Continuatus, are examined in more detail.
We consider the possibility that Basil Lecapenus was involved in the collection of these episodes,
for, as the natural son of Romanus I and later parakoimomenos under Constantine VII, he took an
active part in the latter’s historiographical projects. The interspersion of these rather lengthy passages
in Ps-Symeon’s rigid summary of the historical events presented in the Logothete Chronicle A may
appear incongruous at first sight, but this can be explained if we consider that Ps-Symeon, or at
least its final part, is not a finished product but a preparatory draft for a more ambitious reworking
of Logothete A undertaken by a team of scholars in the Palace.

Peter Frankopan, Kaiserkritik in 12 th-century Byzantium: understanding the significance

of the Epitome historiôn of John Zonaras pp. 653–74
The final section of the Epitome historiôn by John Zonaras is often deemed to be of great
importance for the assessment of the reign of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Zonaras’ apparently
objective perspective is usually held as offering insights into the period 1081–1118 that are
independent of those offered by the Alexiad of Anna Komnene. This article demonstrates that
such long and widely held assumptions are wrong, and that far from serving as an alternative to the
Alexiad, John Zonaras is directly and heavily reliant on the history of Anna Komnene.

Geoffrey Greatrex, Procopius, the Nika riot, and the composition of the Persian Wars pp. 45–57
This article discusses two issues relating to Procopius’ Persian Wars. The first part focuses on his
depiction of the Nika riot of January 532 and argues, contrary to the standard view, that it may be
designed as a display piece to highlight the role of both Justinian and Theodora in the suppression of
this insurrection. Each of the imperial couple, it argues, are active participants in the events, placing
them centre-stage, unlike in the rest of the Wars as a whole. Given the historian’s disapproval of the
circus factions in general, the violence Procopius describes in the quelling of the riot was doubtless
acceptable in his view. The second part considers his account of Belisarius’ expedition into Persian
 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS 783

Assyria in 541, arguing that we can detect two layers of narrative here. An initial positive portrayal of
the campaign seems to have been inadequate in the historian’s view, and so he embarked on a second
account, overlapping with the first, in which he could meet some of the accusations raised against
Belisarius, of which traces may be found in the Anecdota. The article concludes by warning against
giving priority to the Anecdota in our assessment of Justinian’s reign and underlines the constantly
evolving nature of Procopius’ attitudes towards various prominent figures.

Tim Greenwood, Adontz, Armenia and Iran in late antiquity pp. 59–81
Having considered the title, content and context of Adontz’s magisterial Арменія в эпоху
Юстиніана, this study explores the challenges of approaching Armenia in the sixth century from
the perspectives of Western or Roman Armenia and Eastern or Persian Armenia. Noting the dearth
of material from the former, the study focuses instead on four extant contemporary sources in
Armenian from the latter: documents from the First and Second Councils of Duin (505/6 ce and
554/5 ce respectively), the History of Ełišē and the History attributed to Sebēos. Although it is never
going to be possible to make up the narrative gap, collectively these materials reveal a surprising
amount about contemporary social and cultural conditions. Armenians are depicted connecting to
religious and political hierarchies in Sasanian Iran, adopting Iranian social practices and engaging in
commercial and cultural exchanges. Not all Armenians responded in the same way, however. Ełišē’s
History seeks to distinguish and separate Armenians from their hegemonic Iranian oppressors; the
stress is on difference and incompatibility. The History attributed to Sebēos, on the other hand, records
the participation of members of the Armenian lay elite in Iranian political culture and both the high
risks and generous rewards to be gained from serving the šahanšah. Collectively these materials attest
the complex and evolving relationships between Armenia and Iran in the sixth century.

Rika Gyselen, La géographie administrative de l’Empire sassanide :

ce que le Šahrestānīha-ye Ērānšahr ne dit pas pp. 271–85
The short “Sasanian” treatise which later received the title of Šahrestānīhā-ye Ērānšahr (ŠĒ: The
provincial capitals of the land of the Iranians) has come down to us in a manuscript (MK) from the
14th century. The composition of the text is very mixed and must be the work of a compiler. An
obvious imbalance in the formal information on the provincial capitals indicates that this treatise
is not only a compilation, but also an abridgment of the original text. Certain paragraphs seem
to summarize several original paragraphs and provincial capitals in certain regions are very poorly
documented. These gaps must be the result, either of substantial cuts in the original text, or of
reductions in the text during successive transmissions.
Despite everything, the Šahrestānīhā-ye Ērānšahr was, for a long time, the only Middle-Persian
source for the study of the Sasanian territory and its administration, the term šahrestān “provincial
capital” being an administrative notion which indicates the existence of a province. Its value for
administrative history has since been diminished, first, by the appearance of seals of territorial
administrations and their impressions on bullae and, second, by official seals of high-ranking
territorial dignitaries. These primary sigillographic sources have doubled the number of provinces
from the forty provincial capitals mentioned in the ŠĒ, and highlighted the incomplete and
sometimes approximate information provided by the ŠĒ.

Fiona K. Haarer, Zeno’s frontier policy: tactics and diplomacy pp. 83–104
This paper seeks to consider the foreign policy of the emperor Zeno (474–91), examining how
he managed relations with neighbouring powers and the measures he took to ensure the safety of the
empire. He inherited an empire in a poor financial position following the unsuccessful expedition
against the Vandals in 468, and his own reign was continually threatened by coups and conspiracies,
784 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

including the usurpation of Basiliscus (475–6), the insurrection of Marcian (479), and the civil
war orchestrated by Illus (484–8). Nevertheless, against this unsettled background, he found time
to negotiate with the Vandal kings: he agreed an “endless peace” with Gaiseric and despite some
ongoing persecution of the Nicene Christians by the Arian Vandals, his envoys persuaded Hilderic to
return the Church of Carthage to the Nicene clergy. Closer to home, Zeno was forced to negotiate
with and threaten in turn the two Gothic leaders, Theoderic Strabo and Theoderic the Amal, who
both pursued their own ambitions—and even threatened the imperial capital itself—until he was
eventually able to send off Theoderic the Amal to replace Odoacer in Italy. As for matters on the
eastern frontier, he was able to exploit the weakness of the Persian kings, refusing financial help,
promoting Roman interests more aggressively in Armenia, and intervening more heavily in the
doctrinal issues affecting foreign policy. Taken together, these actions show how Zeno, despite his
domestic troubles, sought to use tactics and diplomacy to manage foreign affairs.

Peter Heather, Malchus of Philadelphia & a Byzantine diplomatic archive pp. 105–24
This paper focuses on the surviving fragments of the fifth-century historian Malchus of
Philadelphia, dealing with the period 473–80 and providing extensive coverage, in particular of
a three-way relationship between the imperial court at Constantinople and two separate Gothic
groups established in these years in the East Roman Balkans. Reflecting work done with James
Howard-Johnston during the author’s doctoral studies, this paper argues that the evident quality
of the information provided by Malchus has its origins in the fact that he drew directly upon the
formal treaties, diplomatic correspondence, and written military reports generated as this relationship
developed in the reigns of Leo and Zeno. Malchus wrote his history after the accession of Anastasius
(491), and the paper goes on to conclude that the historian probably gained access to these records
via one or more formal archives, in which they had been stored in the meantime.

Mirela Ivanova, Seeing like a church: the politics of Theophylact of Ohrid’s

Fifteen martyrs of Tiberioupolis pp. 675–94
This article argues that Theophylact of Ohrid’s political loyalties were more complex than previously
assumed. It does so by offering a close textual analysis of one of his less studied works, The Fifteen
martyrs of Tiberioupolis. I find that Theophylact’s account of medieval Balkan history is surprisingly
sympathetic to Bulgarian political autonomy, whilst subsuming the history of the Balkans under
Bulgarian rule into a longue durée history of the church. I call this perspective “seeing like a church”,
in an echo of James C. Scott’s heuristic of “seeing like a state”. The first part of this article then
demonstrates the complex narrative manoeuvres of legibility and simplification that Theophylact
performs to produce this world view. The second part posits why Theophylact is doing this: namely,
that he is not so much writing hagiography to reconcile the local population to Byzantine rule, as to
reconcile himself and his office to the very real possibility of non-Byzantine rule.

Marek Jankowiak, P.Lond. I 113.10, the exile of Patriarch Kyros of Alexandria, and the Arab
conquest of Egypt pp. 287–314
The chronology of the patriarchate of Kyros of Alexandria, a key actor in the transition of Egypt
from Roman to Arabic rule, has long been controversial. The difficulty consists in reconciling sources
speaking of a long exile of around four years, in 637–41, with two documents that seem to suggest
Kyros’ presence in Alexandria during this period. The first, a letter of Kyros to Patriarch Sergios of
Constantinople accepting the Ekthesis, displays some unusual characteristics that suggest that Kyros
was in reality in exile already by autumn 638. The second, the papyrus P.Lond. I 113.10, can be
read as the sole surviving documentary trace of the tribute paid at the initiative of Kyros to stave off
the Arab invasion of Egypt. The mention of Kyros as the initiator of these payments in the papyrus
 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS 785

does not imply, therefore, his presence in Egypt in 639/40. The long exile of Kyros concords with
the testimony of narrative sources, in the first place the Short history of Nikephoros, and suggests,
in turn, that this text is better informed of the affairs of Egypt than has been thought since the
time of Alfred Butler’s monograph on the Arab conquest of Egypt. Nikephoros’ account of several
Roman campaigns to defend this province in the years preceding the invasion of ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs in
640 relocates the most detailed narrative of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the Chronicle of John
of Nikiu, in its context: that of the aftermath of the defeat of a major Roman army sent to Egypt in
639. This reconstruction of the events sheds some new light on the formation of Islamic traditions
on the conquest of Egypt and the supposed Roman reoccupation of Alexandria several years later.

Neil McLynn, Ammianus Marcellinus and the making of Persian strategy pp. 125–42
This paper explores Shapur II’s invasion of Roman territory in 359 as a case study of Roman
attempts to understand Persian military strategy. The prime evidence here is provided by the historian
Ammianus Marcellinus, who presents the deserter Antoninus as a key figure advising the Persians to
aim directly for Antioch rather than besieging the Mesopotamian frontier forts, and subsequently
suggesting a change of direction that brings the invaders to the city of Amida. It is argued that the
influence attributed to Antoninus is entirely Ammianus’ own invention, and that he uses the deserter
to project his own ideas about Roman vulnerability to Persian invasion, and his own explanation of
why the enemy appeared unexpectedly at Amida in 359. By close examination of the specific passages
where Antoninus is featured, a revised picture is offered of some key aspects of the 359 campaign,
including the coded letter sent by Roman envoys at Ctesiphon to the Roman commander, and the
ambush near Amida which led to Ammianus’ involvement in the siege of that city.

Andrew Marsham, Bede, Ibn Isḥāq, and the idols: narratives of conversion at late antique edges
pp. 315–39
This article compares two narrations about idol destruction at formerly pagan shrines in late
antiquity: the destruction of the shrine at Goodmanham, near York, in 627 ce, by the former high
priest, Coifi, and the destruction by the Prophet Muḥammad of the 360 idols around the Kaʿba, in
Mecca, in 628 or 630 ce. These stories are found in, respectively, Bede’s (d. 735) Historia ecclesiastica
(Ecclesiastical history) and in a report by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767) as preserved by al-Khuzāʿī (d. after 961).
Bede’s account is unique to his History, whereas there are numerous parallels and related materials
about Mecca in the wider Arabic tradition. A shared sequence of motifs in the two passages shows
that biblical and hagiographic precedents have contributed to the telling of similar stories in early
medieval Northumbria and Iraq. 2 Kings 23 and many late antique saints’ lives are important
precedents. Notable parallels include a military context, the coming of a local holy man to a shrine,
his purification of the site in the name of the true God, his use of a staff or spear, and the burning of
pagan materials. Juxtaposing the two texts illustrates aspects of the character and reach of a shared
cultural heritage in Eurasia in the middle of the 8th century. Both narrations have been profoundly
shaped by late antique literary forms and are illustrative of the symbolic importance and anxieties
attached to the memory of the conversion of sacred spaces.

Rosemary Morris, From promulgation to practice: the evidence for the application
of tenth-century legislation in the Athonite archives pp. 695–710
The study of the so-called “land legislation” of the Macedonian emperors—the series of imperial
Novels and other acts concerned with the functioning of the fiscal communes of the Byzantine
countryside, the protection of the “military estates” and the curbing of the activities of the dynatoi
(powerful) at the expense of the penetes/ptochoi (poor)—has long been a central area of interest to
Byzantinists. The problem of relating the rhetorical language of the legislation to agrarian realities in
786 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

the provinces is a very real one, but this paper argues that there is evidence to be found in the surviving
archives of the Athonite monasteries for the processes by which the legislation was formulated
and issued, and for the relationship of contemporary concerns in the Athonite region with the
preoccupations of the laws. It discusses the practical processes of the dissemination of the legislation
from Constantinople and the earliest appearance of issues within it in Athonite documents. This
evidence can, conversely, also be shown to indicate local concerns about matters which were afterwards
the subject of imperial legislation. The provincial officials whose activities can be observed in these
documents were clearly aware of the legislation, even though they never specifically mentioned it.
As in late antiquity, a symbiotic relationship existed in the 10th c. between specific situations in the
provinces and the issuing of laws with general application. The Athonite archives provide evidence of
how the concerns of the real world and subsequent legal promulgations were intimately connected.

Arietta Papaconstantinou, Witnessing a world crisis from below: the view from rural Egypt
pp. 341–52
Although papyri have been used with much success to expand and refine our knowledge of the
early Islamic administration and its regional adaptations, texts documenting the local effect of the
regime change on villages have not been used to their full potential. This chapter offers an overview
of the different ways in which villages responded to the increased extractive pressure. It concentrates
on their strategies to mitigate the demand for men, which could be catastrophic for the economies
of rural communities.

Charles F. Pazdernik, Chosroes as spectator in Procopius’ Wars pp. 143–61

Procopius figures Chosroes as a spectator (θεατής) in two places in the Wars. This essay surveys
each of only six occurrences of that word in all of Procopius’ works (Wars 2.11.32, 17.9, 3.10.6,
25.23; Anecd. 9.20, 10.8), indicating how they are orchestrated programmatically in the contexts
in which they appear and showing how they inform one another. In principle, spectators enjoy a
privileged position, uninvolved in and insulated from the consequences of conflict, which enables
them to experience spectacles and to respond to them without being or becoming accountable for
their consequences. As a rule, Procopius’ invocations of spectatorship, coloured with disdain for
the demotic excesses of the theatre and hippodrome, are dismissive and correspondingly edged with
scorn. Figuration of Chosroes as a spectator over the course of his visit to Apamea, in particular
(Wars 2.11), portrays him as a cynical orchestrator of spectacle, but one who invariably falls short,
due to his failure to follow through on his professed intention to inquire into the distinctively late
Roman cultural phenomena that he is attempting to manipulate.

Vivien Prigent, L’usurpation du patrice « Flavius Grégoire » : rana in fabula ? pp. 353–84
The usurpation of “Flavius Gregorius”, exarch of Africa, against his relative Constans II whose
Monothelite policy he staunchly opposed as a champion of orthodoxy is a staple of 7th-century
historiography. This figure embodies the religious conflicts that allegedly caused the collapse of
Byzantine imperial power in North Africa and the Islamic conquest of Maghrib. However, close
examination of the available sources leads to a drastic reevaluation of Gregory’s historical importance.
Not only must any blood-tie with the Heraclian dynasty be discarded but there is no evidence that
he ever was exarch of Africa, an office whose very existence must be questioned. Furthermore,
numismatic evidence undermines the very reality of his usurpation since coins were struck in
Carthage in the name of Constans II during the period attributed to Gregory’s revolt. Analysis of the
transmission of the various historiographical traditions mentioning Gregory leads to the hypothesis
that the idea of an actual usurpation was conceived by early Egyptian Muslim historians confronted
with the globular solidi struck in Carthage since the reign of the emperor Maurice.
 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS 787

Christian C. Sahner, The Passion of the Sixty martyrs of Jerusalem (d. ca. 724) [BHG 1217]:
study and translation pp. 385–406
This article studies and provides the first English translation of the Passion of the Sixty martyrs
of Jerusalem (BHG 1217), a short Greek text describing the death of a group of Byzantine nobles
during an ill-fated pilgrimage to the Holy Land in ca. 724. Written in Palestine during the eighth
century, possibly based on a now-lost Syriac Vorlage, it provides a neglected window into the history
of Umayyad–Byzantine warfare and the response of Melkite Christians during this era of heightened
tension between the empires. The article considers the manuscript tradition of the Passion; the date
and author of the work; the possible translation of the text from Syriac to Greek; the historical
context (especially the Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–18); and the purpose and audience of
the work. The Passion belongs to a larger corpus of Christian martyrdom narratives from the early
Islamic period. Both in terms of historical setting and likely date of composition, it is among the
earliest of these, and therefore of great potential interest to Byzantinists and Islamicists alike.

Alexander Sarantis, Two worlds in crisis: warfare, political change, and economic recession
in Anatolia and the Balkans, ca. 565–750 pp. 163–90
Archaeological evidence for economic trends and historical sources for political and military
events during the later 6th to 8th c. are rarely compared across Anatolia and the Balkans. By doing
so, this paper challenges the idea that economic recession in these regions can be linked directly to
the impact of raiding warfare. It demonstrates that patterns of raiding do not correspond to patterns
of economic boom, stagnation, and collapse. While some regions targeted regularly by raiders
witnessed economic continuity and sometimes an upswing, others which were rarely affected by
large-scale military invasions nevertheless experienced economic recession. The paper explains these
discrepancies by arguing that medium- to long-term economic developments tell us more about levels
of imperial and elite investment and, at the same time, the resilience of regions targeted by enemy
invasions than about the direct short-term effects of the attacks. Interestingly, central and eastern
Anatolia remained part of the empire despite being heavily raided and experiencing an economic
downturn similar to the central and northern Balkans, regions which fell out of imperial control.
The continued loyalty to the empire of Anatolian populations distant from centres of imperial
power in these difficult circumstances presumably owed something to the peace and cultural and
political stability of the Anatolian provinces during late antiquity. The rapid collapse of imperial
control over, and cultural changes in, interior Balkan regions, by contrast, cast light on their more
tumultuous late antique historical background and the greater reliance of elites on financial support
from Constantinople.

Peter Sarris, At the origins of the “persecuting society”? Defining the “orthodox republic”
in the age of Justinian pp. 407–22
This essay draws upon sixth-century legislation to argue that the reign of the emperor Justinian
witnessed a concerted effort to re-cast the East Roman Empire and turn it into what historians
of early modern Europe would recognise as a “confessional state”, in which the legal rights of the
emperor’s subjects increasingly depended upon their officially reckoned degree of religious orthodoxy.
In particular, Justinian sought to extend the struggle against religious non-conformity to the domestic
sphere, targeting the inheritance rights of religious dissidents, and engaging in active persecution of
those whose activities or beliefs were deemed to be injurious to what Justinian conceived of as the
“orthodox republic”. Imperial legislation at this time can be seen to have adopted an increasingly
religious and biblical tone, and the emperor’s moral agenda had a significant impact on the lives
of his subjects, disadvantaging religious non-conformists and sexual minorities whilst advantaging
many others. The re-casting of imperial ideology at this time would be crucial to the subsequent
788 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

evolution of Byzantine political culture, and would also make an important contribution to the
ideological and religious development of both the early Islamic Near East and the medieval West. In
the latter, it is argued, the Justinianic legal texts would provide the conceptual basis for the creation of
what has been described as the “persecuting society” of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in which
clerical and political elites engaged in the concerted targeting of religious and moral “outsiders” so
as to enhance their own authority and power.

Eberhard W. Sauer, Jebrael Nokandeh, Hamid Omrani Rekavandi, Roger Ainslie,

Mohammad Arman Ershadi & Davit Naskidashvili, Qalʿeh Kharabeh in northern Iran:
a Sasanian military tent city for ten thousand mounted soldiers? pp. 423–44
Until recently, the odd passage in ancient and medieval literature was the only evidence for
Sasanian temporary camps and semi-permanent campaign bases. Since 2007 more and more
campaign bases have been identified. This article presents the only such monument with preserved
traces of a tent city inside. Its remarkably regular layout was probably mirrored not only at other
campaign bases, but also in the once arguably much more numerous camps. Moat-enclosed
substantial towered walls and causeways, often also citadels and sometimes smaller mud-brick
structures inside, have ensured that many campaign bases have survived as prominent landmarks,
whereas short-lived camps with light temporary defences remain elusive. Qalʿeh Kharabeh and other
Sasanian military compounds provide unique insights into the Persian defensive infrastructure,
erected in the fifth and sixth centuries on an unprecedented scale. These purpose-built bases for
mobile forces are the physical manifestation of a military strategy that aimed at minimising losses
by keeping field armies in contested territories and in borderlands secure. The regular arrangement
of tents exemplifies efficient use of space by well-organised troops. The Sasanian field army boasted
some of the largest fortresses of the late antique world. Our new evidence for their dense occupation
and sophisticated design demonstrates that it was a formidable force, in numbers and capabilities.

Jonathan Shepard, Missions, emissions and empire: the curious case of Cherson pp. 711–41
This paper argues that Cherson was both outpost and outlier of the Byzantine Empire. It
accommodated imperial officeholders yet harboured a certain esprit de corps under its elite families.
This did not translate into strong or sustained separatist drives, yet truculence could flare up lethally.
The Chersonites’ entrepreneurship and itinerancy sprang from their need to trade with a variety of
peoples, and required both languages and cultural awareness—and a certain dexterity. The Middle
Byzantine authorities seem to have taken such Janus-facedness as read, a corollary of the prosperity
which Chersonites could generate. The De administrando imperio tacitly acknowledges the limits
of empire in the northern Black Sea zone, as elsewhere. The emissions from Cherson could take
material or cultural form, and although the Chersonites’ ventures tended to be self-serving and
mainly for profit, they sometimes went with imperial service, or pilgrimage. In the case of the Rus,
their longstanding dealings with the Chersonites and a particular turn of events in the late tenth
century proved to the advantage of the empire in the longer term. The quite rapid diffusion of
Eastern Christianity under Prince Vladimir’s aegis in the generation following his baptism probably
owed much to the versatility and experience of “the Chersonite priests” who arrived in his train.

David G. K. Taylor, The Syriac version of Strategios’ History of the Persian conquest
of Jerusalem pp. 445–66
An important source for the Persian siege and conquest of Jerusalem in 614 ce, and of their
subsequent taking into captivity of the Cross, the patriarch Zachariah, and many other Christians, is
a composite work attributed to an apparent eyewitness, Strategios: The History of the Persian conquest
of Jerusalem (or Expugnatio Hierosolymae) [CPG 7846]. It was presumably composed in Greek, or
 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS 789

compiled from Greek sources, but until the present it was known to survive only in six Arabic
manuscripts (each preserving a different recension), and three Georgian manuscripts (preserving a
single recension). This article presents a previously unrecorded Syriac version of the History, found
in manuscript Sinai Syriac 82 of St Catherine’s Monastery. This Syriac version was translated from
Arabic by “Basil the tailor of Edessa”, otherwise unknown, perhaps in the early decades of the
12th century. The manuscript was copied by a Syrian Orthodox scribe, Barsauma, in Jerusalem itself,
in 1143 ce. The Syriac version differs significantly from the other Arabic versions, especially in its
extensive use of direct speech and dialogue, which appear to be the work of the translator, but its
lists of fatalities are similar to those of Arabic manuscript C. Included with the main text are two
shorter texts, the first a legendary account of the empress Helena’s origins in the former royal house
of King Abgar in Edessa, and the second a summary, building on Josephus, which lists the various
conquests of Jerusalem, and is warm in its praise for the crusaders.

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, “The coals which were his guardians…”:

the hermeneutics of Heraclius’ Persian campaign and a faint trace of the “last great war”
in Zoroastrian literature pp. 467–90
This article discusses the desecration of the Sasanian fire temple complex of Ādur Gušnasp
(“Fire of the Stallion”) at modern Takt-e Solaymān (“Throne of Solomon”) in Iranian Azerbaijan
(Atropatene) at the hands of Heraclius in 624 ce and the reception of this symbolically laden
military–political event in Zoroastrian literature in “Book” Pahlavi or literary Middle Persian. The
article first presents the Greek and Armenian historical sources on the destruction of the shrine in
624 ce followed by a brief survey of the archaeological and material remains at Takt-e Solaymān. It
then presents the Pahlavi literary sources on the mythical and theological importance of the Ādur
Gušnasp and proceeds to argue that Zoroastrian hermeneutical literature reinterpreted the Old
Avestan texts, namely the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (Yasna 35–41), through complex forms of eisegesis,
thus retro-reading a prophecy of the fire’s desecration at the hands of malevolent individuals back
into their ancient scriptures from the 2nd millennium bce. Ultimately, these fugitive passages not
only serve to highlight the incomprehensible loss of this central icon of Sasanian imperial religion
but they also suggest a rich world of lost Persian responsa to the “last great war” of late antiquity.

Bryan Ward-Perkins, From soldier martyr to warrior saint: the evidence to AD 700 pp. 491–516
This article explores the early evidence (up to ad 700) for soldier martyrs becoming warrior
saints, which was produced by the ERC “Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity” project. Soldiers who died
as martyrs were always represented as soldiers in art—in mosaics and icons in the dress-uniform of
the chlamys, but, in less elevated mediums, already in armour and with weapons, as they would be
shown consistently from the 9th century onwards. In miracle stories too, they appear as soldiers and
often do very soldierly things. However, the evidence that soldier martyrs particularly appealed to
the military and were expected to intervene in warfare in particular is limited. We do find them in
these roles, as protectors of military installations and as defenders of cities and armies; but we also
find that they acted primarily as generalist miracle-workers, often serving village communities far
from the frontiers, and carrying out the full range of miraculous interventions (healing, offering
personal protection, etc.). Furthermore, intervention in battle was not a prerogative of the soldier
martyrs: the Virgin Mary and Thekla of Seleucia were quite capable of fiercely defending cities
under their protection, and relics of highly unbellicose saints, like Symeon the Stylite, accompanied
armies on campaign.
790 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

Mary Whitby, George of Pisidia’s poem On the Avar War (Bellum avaricum):
introduction and translation pp. 517–44
This paper provides a first English translation of George of Pisidia’s poem On the Avar War
(Bellum avaricum), which was composed soon after the repulse of a combined Avar and Persian
siege of Constantinople in summer 626. An introductory section contextualizes the poem, provides
a synopsis and offers some preliminary comments on structure and themes. The accompanying
notes seek to elucidate difficult passages and in particular to indicate parallels with the two other
contemporary accounts of these events in the Chronicon paschale and in a celebratory sermon
delivered by Theodore Syncellus soon after the siege. Comparison and contrast with these texts
highlights distinctive features of George’s approach, thus providing a basis for future evaluation of
George’s other major narrative poems on Heraclius’ Persian campaigns.

Michael Whitby, The year 629 and the Chronicon paschale pp. 545–64
The end of the Chronicon paschale in the Vatican manuscript is damaged, with the result that
there have been various proposals about the transposition of material. In 2001 Holger Klein argued
that two notices relating to the arrival in Constantinople of minor relics associated with the Passion
that are located in 614 properly belong in 629. This switched the ceremonies to welcome the relics
from the aftermath of the Persian capture of Jerusalem and the removal to Babylonia of the True
Cross to the context of Heraclius’ recovery of the Cross after the overthrow of Khusro II. This chapter
demonstrates that the arguments advanced by Klein in terms of liturgy, the condition of the Vatican
manuscript and historical context are not robust, so that there is no basis for the transposition. As
a result, the celebration of the relics should be seen as part of imperial efforts to rebuild morale that
had been shattered by the devastating losses of early 614.

Josef Wiesehöfer, Alfred von Gutschmid, Theodor Nöldeke

and the beginnings of the Sasanian Empire pp. 191–207
Among the close friendships that scholars formed with each other, the one between the ancient
historian Alfred von Gutschmid and the Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke is undoubtedly one of the
most remarkable, lasting far beyond the early death of the former. Both scholars, apart from their
special interest in the classical and non-classical languages, which made them experts also in each
other’s source languages, were united by the conviction that a horizon-expanding view beyond the
borders of their own discipline, and the geographical boundaries established in it, was necessary.
Thus, the interest of the ancient historian Gutschmid was not only the Greco-Roman, but also the
Ancient Near Eastern and the Iran-determined world, that of the Semitist also Iran, but equally
the Greco-Roman and the world of the Bible. In the history of the Parthian and Sasanian Empires,
their interests met in a special way, and in view of Nöldeke’s treatment of the early Islamic tradition
on the early Sasanian Empire it is not surprising that the ancient historian maintained an intensive
professional exchange with the connoisseur of Arabic–Persian historiography. Their views on the
transformation processes in the Middle East at the beginning of the 3rd c. ad are therefore still of
interest and continuing relevance today. To the doyen of Sasanid research, the contribution may
therefore serve as a recognition of his merits for this research, but also as a proof of our friendship.

Miranda E. Williams, East Roman client management during the reign of Justinian I:
a comparison of strategies on the Eastern and African frontiers pp. 209–30
Following its rapid overthrow of the Vandal Kingdom in Africa in 533, the Eastern Roman
Empire struggled to consolidate its territorial hold and authority in the region. Explanation for this
apparent “failure” has frequently been sought in the Roman leaders’ poor understanding of, and
 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS 791

consequent poor strategy for, dealing with the Berbers, the indigenous tribal groups living within
and without the newly established African provinces, who had begun, in the last quarter of the
5th century, to establish themselves as semi-autonomous polities. This paper makes an assessment
of initial Roman strategy in Africa, focusing on the period between 533 and 535, and of strategic
intelligence concerning the Berbers, neither of which has been adequately assessed. Given the prior
experience of the imperial administration, and of the Roman military commanders in Africa, on the
eastern frontier in the years immediately preceding 533, it argues that Roman strategy in relation to
the Berbers should be contextualised in the development of client management strategy in the East,
and, in particular, in relation to the Jafnids, the empire’s principal Arab clients. The Eastern Roman
Empire’s strategy in relation to the Berbers was clearly shaped by its experiences in the East. This
strategy was ultimately unsuccessful in Africa, but less because of the unsuitability of the strategy
than because of weaknesses within the Roman African administration resulting in insufficient time
to cultivate relationships with individual tribes.

Andrew Wilson, A series of unfortunate events: the end of classical urbanism

in southwestern Asia Minor in the early seventh century AD pp. 565–94
This chapter revisits the thesis first proposed by Clive Foss in 1975 that it was destruction
during Persian invasions of Asia Minor during the last great war of antiquity that put an end to
monumental urbanism on the classical model there in late antiquity. After a brief history of the “Foss
debate”, it considers some of the methodological problems in interpreting the relevant archaeological
evidence, and suggests some tests that might assist in interpretation. It then reviews archaeological
evidence from relatively recent excavations in southwest Asia Minor, at Aphrodisias, Sardis, Ephesos,
Stratonikeia, Tripolis, Hierapolis, and Laodikeia. There is now a considerable body of data which is
most easily attributed to Persian invasions in the period 615–20, and probably in fact to 617; but
the picture is further complicated by earthquakes happening in much the same period; and also by
Arab raids in the second half of the seventh century. In some cases the chronological data allow us
to distinguish between probable Persian and Arab attacks, and we can reconstruct some outlines
of a Persian campaign in Pisidia and Caria in 617, followed by an earthquake, or more probably a
series of earthquakes, that hit several cities of the region around 620.

Philip Wood, New histories of a time of conflict: the seventh century

in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian pp. 595–613
This article examines the description of the Arab conquests of the seventh century preserved
in the twelfth-century Chronicle of Michael the Syrian. Some of these scenes had been used in
the past to sustain an argument of strong confessional divisions that facilitated the Arab victory.
It surveys the identification of the Romans as Chalcedonian “heretics” or “persecutors” from a
Miaphysite perspective and it attempts to characterise the authorship of these passages. In some
cases, criticism of emperors or generals is not essentially religious, and the accusation is one of
malpractice or incompetence rather than persecution. In others, individual Chalcedonians do engage
in the persecution of Miaphysites. Nevertheless, the authors of these scenes do not tend to criticise
Heraclius or the empire as a whole, but focus on individual villains. Finally, I argue that a number
of these scenes have been interpolated by a later hand, probably Michael the Syrian himself, to
increase the sense of a division between Miaphysites and Chalcedonians.

Constantin Zuckerman, The eleventh century in De administrando imperio pp. 743–58

James Howard-Johnston has briefly pointed out that the mention of the theme of Tziliapert in
DAI 53.510 is incompatible with the treatise’s traditional mid-tenth-century dating. Taking this
cursory observation as a starting-point, this study argues that the whole set of notes that make up
792 ABSTRACTS/RÉSUMÉS

the final part of chapter 53 (ll. 493–535) cannot be any earlier than the late 1020s, the probable
(and the earliest possible) date of the creation of the theme. The mention of a strategos at Cherson
and some related evidence impose the early 1060s as the terminus ante quem for the redaction of the
notes. If the notes dealing with a rebellion in Crimea relate, as this study argues, to the uprising by
George Tzoulas, the strategos of the Cimmerian Bosporus ca. 1015, an early date, in the late 1020s
or the 1030s, is the most plausible, thus excluding the authorship of Caesar John Doukas, at whose
behest the preserved copy of DAI was executed in the 1070–80s.

Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, The Byzantinist of Isfahan: Ḥamza ibn al-Ḥasan

on Greek and Roman history pp. 759–75
In his Chronology of the kings of the earth and the prophets, the Iranian scholar Ḥamza ibn al-Ḥasan
of Isfahan (d. 960s) used Arabic translations of late antique texts to provide chronologies of Persian,
Greco-Roman, and Israelite history before the coming of Islam, as well as a history of the Arabs before
and after Islam. While the Persian and Israelite sections of his work have been translated into modern
languages and shown to be important witnesses to late antique historiographical texts, that on the
history of the Romans (al-rūm) has not. This chapter presents an English translation of the Greco-
Roman section of Ḥamza’s Chronology, which stretches from the Ptolemies to Constantine VII. In
this, Ḥamza describes his reliance on two historical sources originally written in a “Roman” language:
one was from Baghdad, perhaps associated with exchange with the Byzantine court; the other was
a text which he encountered in the possession of a Roman slave, perhaps in Isfahan. Both provide
laconic but relatively accurate imperial chronologies of Roman history in the manner of Greek
or Syriac “short chronicles”. These texts’ reckonings are briefly compared with three other early
Islamic accounts of Greco-Roman history, showing that all five are independent texts. This suggests
separate translations of different non-Arabic sources, thereby demonstrating the availability of
Greek and Syriac texts to Muslim historians and greater interaction between Arabic and non-Arabic
historiographical traditions than has at times been assumed.