Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

341 Dimitrios G. Letsios. Leo VI the Wise and the Saracens... is important, because it is the first in a series of military treatises characteristic for the tenth century. Islam and the Muslims have had replaced the Persians as Byzantium’s main rival and this political reality is the background reflected in the Taktika of Leo VI. Leo’s effort with this endeavor reflects the will to adapt old strategies and tactics to a new enemy. Despite religious polemic, Leo VI’s Taktika reveals a feeling of respect for the Empire’s Muslim adversaries on the battlefield. A long treatment of the Arabs has been incorporated in Taktika , Constitution 18, and an original work on naval warfare has been added, Taktika , Constitution 19. Keywords . Holy war; Jihad;Macedonian renaissance; militarymanuals; Arabs; Saracens; Leo VI’s Taktika ; ideal leadership; “mirrors of princes”; Arab Caliphate; naval warfare; Naumachica . T he Roman soldiers, in order to fight the barbarians should be encouraged by faith, countering the barbarians’ fervor inflamed by religious motives; this is the wisdomdelivered by Byzantine strategists. 1 Religious symbols and rhetoric were extensively used in battle fields, as it is explicitly testified in the historiography. 2 War ethics and religious 1 Erani, ed., Siriano, Discorsi di Guerra , Bari 2010, Rhetorica, 10, 1. The compendium of Syrianos magistros is currently dated to the mid-9th century. Cf. Y. Stouraitis, ed. ACompanion to the Byzantine Culture of War, ca. 300–1204 (Brill’s Companions to the ByzantineWorld 3), Leiden 2018, 77 and n. 89; Ph. Rance, “The date of the military compendiumof Syrianus Magister (formerly the sixth century Anonymus Byzantinus)”, BZ 100/2(2007), 701–737, with extensive additional literature. 2 Theophanes Continuatus , ed. I. Bekker, [CSHB], Bonn 1838, 388, 13–17, 388, 23–389, 4; Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum , ed. I. Thurn, [CFHB 5], Berlin — New York 1973, 202–203, 86. Cf. Y. Stoyanov, “Norms of war in EasternOrthodox Christianity”, in V. Popovski, G. M. Reichberg and N. Turner, eds., World religions and norms of war , New York 2009, 166–219. Cf. ibid., 178: “This Christianized ‘‘just war’’ tradition became a fundamental part of Byzantine imperial ideology, closely interwoven with the reinterpreted and actualizedRomano-Byzantine paradigms of God-guidedness in battle and imperial victory (‘‘Victoria Augustorum’’); G.T. Dennis,“Religious Services in the Byzantine Army”, in: E. CARR, ed., Eulogema: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft S. J . = Studia Anselmiana 110 (1993), 107–117. On the perennial use of