Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

353 Dimitrios G. Letsios. Leo VI the Wise and the Saracens... in warmer seasons they gather their forces and launch their attacks in September. 1 Leo’s notice, that the Arabs prefer to camp safely in night time and avoid night fighting, because they are “sleepy”, 2 belongs to the same context: observe and properly use the opponent’s specifics, natural characteristics and attitudes and make them your advantage. “The Saracens are barbaric and faithless people”, but however, Leo admits “they come together, each man of his own free will and with his whole household”. Leo states, as motive for their war participation, for the noble ones the will “to die on behalf of their nation”, while for the poor he stresses “the shake of acquiring booty”. 3 Nevertheless, the picture drown in this paragraph, concerning the Saracens recruitment 1 “They join up with the inhabitants of Tarsus in Cilicia and set out on campaign. At other times of the year only themen fromTarsus, Adana, and other cities of Cilicia launch raids against the Romans”, Taktika , 18, 119, 574–583 (p. 481f.). Leo adapts this directly fromMaurice, Strategikon, 11.1.41–42, and some of his remarks seemnot to accurate and indeed Arab raids took place even in winter. Cf. De velitatione , ed. G. Dennis, Three Byzantine military treatises (DumbartonOaks texts 9, CFHB28),Washington 1985, 144–239, De Velitaione 7 (p. 163): “The general should be on the alert for news about the equipping and movement of a large army, especially at that time of the year when one expects large armies to be assembled, usually in August. In that month large numbers would come fromEgypt, Palestine, Phoenicia, and southern Syria to Cilicia, to the country around Antioch, and to Aleppo, and adding some Arabs to their force, they would invade Roman territory in September”. On the Cilicia front and routes to invade Byzantine territory, cf. J. Haldon, — H. Kennedy, “The Arab–Byzantine frontier in the eighth and ninth centuries”, ZRVI 19 (1980) 79–116; C. E., Bosworth, “The City of Tarsus and the Arab Byzantine Frontiers in Early and Middle Abbasid Times.” Oriens 33 (1992), 268–86; Haldon, A Critical Commentary , 361ff., with additional literature. 2 Taktika , 18, 112, 543–549 (p. 478f.): “They are given to sleep and for this reason have a fear of battle at night and all that is connected with it, especially when they are raiding in a country foreign to them. And so they withdraw to strong places and there set up a guard for the night or else they will securely fortify their camp so as not to be subjected to night attacks by their adversaries”. 3 Taktika 18, 122, 592–598 (p. 482f.): “Their fellow tribesmen, men and especially women, provide them with weapons, as if sharing with them in the expedition. Because their physical weakness does not enable them to bear arms themselves, they consider it a reward to provide armament for the soldiers”.