«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Piracy, Privateering and Maritime Violent Actions m 59 n by warships 1 . Such practice is not reported in the Byzantine hagiographical sources of the 9 th –11 th century, although in the Life of St. Theodore of Cythera it is mentioned that the saint sailed from Monemvasia to Cythera on a warship because no merchant ship was available at the time he needed to travel 2 . It should be emphasized that even the Arabs of the emirate of Crete, who frequently raided the Byzantine islands and coastlines, were engaged in maritime violence only at the time of warfare according to the maritime jihād . It is from the Byzantine hagiographical sources which so bitterly de- scribe the Arab maritime violent activities that we learn how faithfully the Arabs of Crete acted according to their maritime jihād . Thus in the Life of St. Theodore of Cythera it is reported that the Byzantine emperor Romanus I (920–944) arranged a peace treaty with the Arabs of Crete in order to liberate Byzantine captives ( ἀ λλάγιον) 3 and to secure free sailing around the island of Crete 4 . In the Life of St. Theoctiste of Lesbos it is mentioned that an ambassador was sent from Constantinople to Crete 5 . The author of this Life does not specify the purpose of this embassy but we cannot accept R. Jenkin’s far-fetched view, repeated by Angela C. Hero, that he was supposed to negotiate a peace treaty between the Byzantines and the Arabs of Crete in order to secure neutrality of the Cretan Arabs while at that time the Byzantines were attacking the Syrian ports 6 . Most likely the ambassador was sent to Crete to secure the liberation of Byzantine prisoners. The emirate of Crete was not an unruly pirates’ nest as it has been called by some modern scholars. Actually, as the Arabic sources report and the ar- chaeological and numismatic evidence confirms, it was a well organized fron- tier state with its own administration, coined its own money, and there were a number of intellectuals who usually carried the sobriquet “the Iqritishī” (the 1 For goods and passengers transferred in the Mediterranean either on Arab warships or on Arab merchant convoys accompanied by warships in the 11 th –13 th C., see: Goitein S. D., trans., Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders , Princeton, 1973. P. 306, 311–312. 2 Oikonomides N. The Life of St. Theodore of Cythera (10 th C.), in: Acts of the Third Pan- ionian Congress I, Athens, 1967. P. 287 (in Greek). 3 For the meaning of “ ἀ λλάγιον” see the section ‘Les termes fidā’ et ἀ λλάγιον dans les sources’ in Campagnolo-Pothitou, Les échanges de prisonniers entre Byzance et l’Islam aux IXe et Xe siècles (cf. note 23), p. 8–10. 4 Oikonomides. The Life of St. Theodore of Cythera (10 th C.) (cf. note 33), p. 289. 5 See: The Life of St. Theoctiste , ed. H. Delehaye, Act. SS , Nov. IV , Brussels, 1925. P. 224– 225. 6 See: Jenkins R. Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries . New York, 1966. P. 210; see also Hero A. C. Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos, in: Holy Women of Byzantium: ten saints’ lives in English translation , ed. Alice-Mary Talbot, Washington DC, 1996. P. 96, note 2.