After his conquest of Melitene (Malatya) in 934, John Curcuas relaxed his efforts. No serious Roman-Arab fighting is reported for several years, although an Arab invasion of Armenia was repulsed (by the Armenians, without Roman help) in 936.
In 938 the Romans started to negotiate peace with the Caliphate at Baghdad. This was due to several reasons. The Romans wanted to make the conquest of Melitene permanent, so it could be converted into a new theme, or military & administrative district. Constantinople and Baghdad also had a common desire to deal with the rising power of the Hamdanid dynasty of Mosul.
This family now controlled all the Muslim frontier provinces from Mosul to Aleppo, and were led by an energetic young warlord, Sayf al-Dawla, called 'The Sword of the Dynasty'.
To seal the agreement with Baghdad, Emperor Romanos I sent a letter to the Caliph - the Greek text in gold, the Arabic in silver - suggesting an exchange of prisoners. The exchange took place on the Lamus river in October, but there was an excess of 800 Muslim prisoners. To balance this, the Caliph spent six months looking for an equivalent number of Romans in Arab custody. At the same time Romanus sent an embassy to the governor of Egypt, requesting alliance.
Eager to fight the Romans, Sayf did not consider himself bound by any of these truces. He boldly attacked the army of John Curcuas, numbering 100,000 men, in the region of Samasota. After a month of skirmishing, Sayf ambushed the vanguard of the Roman army and inflicted a heavy defeat on it, capturing seventy of Curcuas's officers and carrying away the Domestic's 'throne' or personal chair.
The emperor, Romanos, held his hand. Constantinople and Baghdad were at peace, and he was reluctant to endanger the truce. Sayf, however, chose to press his advantage.
(Attached is an image of Sayf al-Dawla and his court)
No comments:
Post a Comment