Warfare and Resilience in Byzantine Anatolia, 600-750CE

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Alexander Sarantis, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 512388215

My project will investigate the impact of raiding in Byzantine Anatolia in the 7th and first half of the 8th c. I will explore which regions were worst affected by Sassanid Persian and Arab attacks and in which periods, and how local societies responded to these crises. In the process, I intend to question the commonly held assumption that these invasions caused major long-term socio-economic decline and highlight the resilience and adaptability of Anatolian communities. The main part of the project will comprise a historical reconstruction of the raids. This will involve a detailed comparison and source critical consideration of historical texts. I hope to show that, because these accounts often misdate and, in many cases, exaggerate the impact of historical events, the invasions were not as regular or intensive as is often suggested. I will set my reconstruction of the military events against a geographical and infrastructural context to establish temporal and spatial patterns of raiding. The next part of the project will demonstrate that there is little correlation between these patterns and archaeological evidence for long-term economic recession. Instead, I will argue that these longer durée developments were caused to a greater extent by broader political, environmental, and socio-economic changes within the Byzantine empire. However, I will acknowledge that raiding caused short-term destruction and disruption, mostly invisible in the archaeological record. The ability of Anatolian communities to recover from these traumatic events will be explained in the final part of the project. This will consist first of a study of the textual evidence for these societies’ historical, social, and cultural backgrounds and varying relationships with the Byzantine authorities. Modern resilience theories will be used to explain the adaptability and survival of both the empire and these provincial populations. Finally, I will compare trends and conditions in Anatolia with those in the Balkans, the other core region still controlled by the Byzantine government. This will highlight the greater economic resources, and deeper-rooted local cultures of Anatolia. The outputs of the project will be a published monograph, a database of the raids, and an edited collection culminating from a workshop.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants