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

m 60 n Vassilios Christides Cretan) in the Arabic sources 1 . Baseless is also the popular assumption that the economy of the emirate was based on slave trade. Such trade flourished in later periods in Crete when anarchy prevailed in the Aegean, especially after the 13 th century 2 . There is no doubt that even at the time of the emirate of Crete a limited slave trade took place since on the one hand, thousands of Arabs were captured by the Byzantines in the land war and on the other hand, a large number of Byzantines were taken prisoners by the Arabs in the land war and sea raids and all captives automatically became slaves at the mercy of their captors 3 . Nonetheless, the need for ransom and/or for exchange of prisoners superseded the greed for substantial profit from the slave trade 4 . A series of important studies has illuminated various aspects concerning the capture and exchange of the captives of the Arab-Byzantine wars and their careful scrutiny does not reveal any slave trade on great scale by any of the par- ticipants. Especially the emirate of Crete acquired great wealth with its intense trade relations with the other Arab states and did not need to base its economy on piratical raids as the small state of Denia did. Conclusions The current author would suggest that the violent maritime actions usually called “piratical”, i. e. motivated by mere plundering, or labeled “privateering” accomplished with the support of a state, cannot be well 1 Christides V. The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824 ). A Turning Point in the Strug- gle between Byzantium and Islam , Athens, 1984. P. 114–126. For the coins of the emirate of Crete see: Mazarakis A. D. The Coinage of the Amirs of Crete. The F. L. Collection, in: Graeco-Arabica 11 (2011), p. 97–104. Dr. Mazarakis, in an oral communication, informed me that a gold dinar of Crete of the year 337 H contained 85% gold or 20.4 carats; thus it can be assumed that the conciseness of gold in the dinars in the emirate of Crete was similar to that found in other Arab states. 2 See: note 1. Even Vathi, Theodora, who considers almost all Arab raids as piratical, states that organized attacks in the high seas and the ports against merchant ships appear in the 13 th – 14 th C. (cf. note 6), p. 106. See also: Ahrweiler H. Course et piraterie dans la Méditerranée orientale aux IVe–XIe siècles (empire byzantin), in: Course et piraterie: Études presentées à la Commission Internationale d’Histoire Maritime à l’occasion de son XVe colloque interna- tional pendant le XIVe Congrès International des Sciences historiques , San Francisco, August 1975, Paris, 1975. P. 7–29. 3 Verlinden Ch. Guerre et traite comme sources de l’esclavage dans l’Empire Byzantin aux IXème et Xème siècles, in: Graeco-Arabica 5 (1993), p. 207. See also Kolia-Dermitzaki, Athina, Some Remarks on the Fate of Prisoners of War in Byzantium (9 th –10 th Centuries) (cf. note 23), p. 584. 4 Campagnolo-Pothitou M. Les échanges de prisonniers entre Byzance et l’Islam aux IXe et Xe siècles (cf. note 26), p. 26, expressed the view that a great number of the Byzantine captives who were sailors were kept by the Arabs to be incorporated into their maritime service.