Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 123 h Arabs and Arabia in the Byzantine Sources: Hagiographical Testimonies public after such a long imprisonment, six and a half years after the capture of Amorion, at a point when negotiations for an exchange of prisoners had started. The possible motives for the Caliph’s action, having to do with internal politics, which Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki suggests sound plausible. 40 Executions on religious issues were practiced at the time of the then Caliph Al-Wāthiḳ and his presence at the execution attracted a crowd of Muslims and Christians. True to its educational and religious purpose, the narratives of the Martyrdom, declare that the public execution was perceived by the Arabs as the last blow to the Martyrs’ beliefs and as the triumph of their own faith. 41 The Arabs in the Aegean: some hagiographical hints Female monastic sanctity is rarer in the Middle-Byzantine hagiographical literature. Athanasia of Aegina is an example in the ninth century. 42 Only a hint, the reference in Athanasia’s Life that her husband was killed in a battle with Marousioi , who have invaded the island, offers a historical testimony for the presence of Arabs in the island of Aegina at this time. Marousioi , is a Byzantine literary term for Arab Muslims of Africa and this raid occurred only a few years after the conquest of Crete by Abu Hafs (ca. 823–828). 43 “According to Gregory the Cleric, who wrote the vita of St. Theodora of Thessalonike (ca. 894), the island of Aegina had been abandoned in his time. However, Aegina was by no means devastated by this Arab attack; to the contrary the vita of Athanasia, who founded three new churches, furnishes evidence of construction activity on the island”. 44 40 Kolia-Dermitzaki, The Execution of the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion 154: “The combination of all the above mentioned data leads to the following conclusions: What should be accepted as the only possible explanation for the public decapitation of the eminent Byzantine prisoners after six and a half years of imprisonment and when negotiations for an exchange had already begun, is the fact that the caliph badly needed to demonstrate his power to his subjects. This need for a show of power on the part of the Arab sovereign was caused by the uprisings and general turmoil in his territory, one of the main reasons for which was the coercive imposition of the doctrine taught by the progressive Muʻtazila”. 41 Lykaki, The Byzantine Musclulinity at war; cf. Eadem, Les prisonniers de guerre dans l’Em- pire Byzantin (VIe–XIe s.): L’Église, l’État, la diplomatie et la dimension sociale, PhD diss., National and Kapodistrian University of Athens/École Pratique des Hautes Études 2017, Digital publication: http://thesis.ekt.gr/thesisBookReader/id/37409. 42 BHG 180. 43 Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database , Kazhdan and Talbot, Athanasia of Aegina BHG 180–80B. Cf. Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Holy Women in Byzantium. Te n Saints Lives in Translation , Washington, D. C. 1996, 137ff. 44. Life of Athanasia, 1. Cf. V. Christides, The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824). A Turning Point in the Struggle between Byzantium and Islam , Academy of Athens, Athens 1984, 158; Alice-Mary Talbot, Holy Women in Byzantium, 143 and n. 21.