Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 76 h Vassilios Christides later period (H323) to carry a large number of additional troops. He describes an Andalusian fleet stationed inAlmería, composed of 40 warships, on which 1,000 soldiers and 2,000 sailors were embarked in addition to the regular crews. In the same passage it is clearly demonstrated that the Andalusian Arabs used a spe- cial ship called ḥarrāqah , corresponding to the Greek πυρφόρον πλοῖον, for the transportation of the liquid fire (see Appendix A ). While such types of vessels were employed by the official state of Andalu- sia, we should take into consideration that the Andalusian refugees obviously did not travel on any warships provided by Ḥakam. We can assume that the refugees boarded Andalusian merchant ships, lightly armed, along with their crews and plausibly with an unknown number of adventurers. 66 Leaving aside the vexing problem of the types of ships used by the Andalu- sian refugees and the way they acquired them, the interrelated problem of their exact time of departure from Cordoba and arrival inAlexandria will now be dis- cussed in an effort to illuminate somewhat the details of their arduous voyage. Unfortunately, all Arabic sources describe the arrival of the Andalusians 65 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greekfire-madridskylitzes1.jpg (accessed: 15.05.2023). 66 See Bosworth’s view, which partly coincides with the present author’s view, in Ṭabari, Tar’rīkh al-Rusul wa’l Mulūk , trans. C. E. Bosworth, The History of al-Ṭabari , Albany N.Y. 1987, 164, note 493: “…these Andalusian corsairs and adventurers included considerable elements from the rebels expelled from the suburb of Cordoba in 202 (818) by the Umayyad amīr, al-Ḥakam I…”. Fig. 8 . Use of Greek fire by the Byzantine fleet. Codex Skylitzes Matritensis, Bibliteca Nacional de Madrid, Vitr. 26-2, Bild-Nr. 77, f 34 v. b. The caption above the left ship reads: στόλος Ρωμαίων πυρπολῶν τὸν τῶν ἐναντίων στόλον (“the fleet of the Romans setting ablaze the fleet of the enemies”) 65