Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

346 IV. Ближний Восток и его соседи to motivate his generals through religious motives, to fight for their Christian faith. The author stresses the fact that Leo consistently uses “Θεός rather than τύχη” and this particular Christian moral is dominant in fighting against the Caliphate. 1 Leo’s attitude and care to inspire religious morale and motivation is as means to counter the enemy’s stance, since Leo had perceived that religious fervor underscored Arab military actions. This was essential: “For the Saracens do not go on campaign out of servitude and military service but rather for love of gain and freedom or, to put it better, for robbery and for their own faith, rather, superstitious regard for their non-faith. Because of this, when they suffer evil fromus, they thinkGod has become their enemy and they cannot bear the injury.” 2 Despite this religious polemic, Leo VI’s Taktika reveals a feeling of respect for the empire’sMuslimadversaries on the battlefield. In Taktika , Leo describes them as formidable enemies who excel all foreign nations in intelligence andwho have adoptedRomanweapons and often copiedRoman tactics. 3 The Taktika of Leo VI express the literary encyclopedism in the field of military handbooks, a trend established in the time of Leo and continued later in the environment of Nikephorus Phocas and Nikephorus Ouranos. The cod. Laurentianus 55, 4 (mid-10th cent.), which contains a corpus of military treatises from antiquity and Byzantium plus Leo’s works, is regarded as representing a military encyclopaedia conceived by Constantine VII. 4 The Sylloge Tacticorum, or Συλλογὴ Τακτικῶν , written in Greek, is another military handbook, concerned likewise with the situation in the eastern frontier, which gave the impetus for the production of military manuals. It reflects the cultural dimension of revival and belongs to the same literarymilieu but the exact date of its compilation is problematic. In any case, it is regarded as “a typical product of the Macedonian renaissance in that much of its material is recycled from previous 1 Riedel, Leo VI , 3f. 2 Taktika 18, 24, 133–136 (p. 446f.). 3 G. Theotokis, Byzantine Military Tactics in Syria and Mesopotamia in the Tenth Century, a comparative study , Edinburgh 2018, 15. 4 Antonopoulou, Emperor Leo VI (2017), here188.