Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
De velitatione bellica
Summary
De velitatione bellica is the conventional Latin title for the Byzantine military treatise on skirmishing and guerrilla-type border warfare, composed circa 970. Its original Greek title is Περὶ Παραδρομῆς (Peri Paradromēs, "On Skirmishing"). The original author is unknown but likely to have been a high-ranking army officer close to the Phokas family. The work describes tactics used previously against Muslim opponents but the author notes that due to recent Byzantine successes they might "not find application in the eastern regions at the present time" but might be useful for future campaigns. The author is critical of the bureaucracy of the Constantinople-based government.
In the mid-7th century, the Byzantine Empire had lost most of its lands in the East to the Arab conquests. Following the repulsion of two Arab sieges of Constantinople, the imperial capital, the situation was stabilized, and the border between Byzantium and the Muslim Caliphate was established along the Taurus Mountains defining the eastern edge of Asia Minor. For the next several centuries, warfare would assume the pattern of larger or smaller raids and counter-raids across this barrier. For the Arabs, these raids (razzias) were carried out as part of their religious obligation against their major infidel enemy, and assumed an almost ritualized character. The Byzantines remained generally on the defensive, organizing Asia Minor into combined civil-military provinces called themata. On the mountainous border, smaller districts, the kleisourai (singular: kleisoura meaning "defile, enclosure"), were established.
From the late 9th century, however, the fracturing of the Muslim world and the increasing strength of Byzantium caused a shift in the balance of power, as Byzantine campaigns penetrated into Cilicia, Armenia, northern Mesopotamia, and northern Syria. The last major enemy to face the Byzantines in the region was the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf ad-Dawla. For ten years, from 944 to 955, he conducted raids into Asia Minor, inflicting several heavy defeats on the Byzantines in the process.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.