Byzantine Empire

Military revival

A reassertion of Byzantine military and naval power in the East began with victories over the Arabs by Michael III’s general Petronas in 856. From 863 the initiative lay with the Byzantines. The struggle with the Arabs, which had long been a struggle for survival, became a mounting offensive that reached its brilliant climax in the 10th century. By 867 a well-defined boundary existed between the Byzantine Empire and the territory of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Its weakest point was in the Taurus Mountains above Syria and Antioch. Basil I directed his operations against this point, recovered Cyprus for a while, and campaigned against the Paulicians, a heretical Christian sect whose anti-imperial propaganda was effective in Anatolia. But the conflict with Islam was one that concerned the whole empire, in the West as well as in the East, and by sea as well as by land. In 902 the Arabs completed the conquest of Sicily, but they were kept out of the Byzantine province of South Italy, for whose defense Basil I had even made some effort to cooperate with the Western emperor Louis II. The worst damage, however, was done by Arab pirates who had ... (200 of 32,247 words)