Muawiyah I

In the early days of Muhammad (c.570 - 632 CE), the founder of Islam, not everyone in that part of the world automatically agreed with him. A distant kinsman of Muhammad's, Abu Sufyan of the Umayyad clan, opposed the new religious leader. The Battle of Badr had Muhammad's followers on one side and Abu Sufyan on the other. Abu Sufyan's eldest son and father-in-law were killed at the battle.

Then Muhammad married Abu Sufyan's widowed sister in 629 and entered Mecca in 630, whereupon Abu Sufyan became a follower and took a role in the new Muslim state. (The illustration shows Abu Sufyan and other leaders making a pledge to support the new Muslim order.)

Abu Sufyan had two sons, Yazid and Muawiyah, who each were granted command roles in the province. Yazid became governor of Damascus, Jordan, and Palestine. This was under the Rashidun Caliphate. Muawiyah went on to start his own caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate.

Muawiyah became one of Muhammad's scribes first, moving up the ranks until he became the governor of Syria. There was a powerful tribe, the Banu Kalb, with which Muawiyah formed an alliance. Muawiyah became a leader in the campaigns against the Byzantine Empire.

His duties were not just military, of course. He organized the local government and established a chancellery and postal routes. The Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (Northern Africa) was begun by him. When the last Rashidun Caliph, Uthman, was assassinated, Muawiyah was chosen to replace him. Muawiyah was the first caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty.

He was different from other caliphs, however, treating himself more as a king above others rather than a first among equals. He was criticized for having a throne that put him physically higher than others. A 9th-century Arab Muslim historian, al-Ya'qubi, described him as:

...the first to have a bodyguard, police-force and chamberlains ... He had somebody walk in front of him with a spear, took alms out of the stipends and sat on a throne with the people below him ... He used forced labour for his building projects ... He was the first to turn this matter [the caliphate] into mere kingship.

There is another anecdote, however, that makes him a little more kind to his subjects. One anecdote, in which he is questioned for letting someone criticize him, has him respond "I do not insert myself between the people and their tongue, so long as they do not insert themselves between us and our sovereignty."

Another supposed saying of his was "I never use my voice if I can use my money, never my whip if I can use my voice, never my sword if I can use my whip; but, if I have to use my sword, I will."

He died in the spring of 680 CE, having caused a controversy by naming his son as his successor rather than having a successor be chosen by his followers. Some of what we know about him comes from a Nestorian chronicler named Elijah of Nisibis, whom I will tell you about tomorrow.

The End of Constans

Constans II came to the imperial throne as a child, but upon gaining his majority he proved to be capable and even ambitious. His (fruitless) attempt to resolve the Monothelitism controversy has already been discussed, and how he had the Pope himself arrested and sent to Constantinople for trial.

Concerned about delays of traffic on the Silk Road, he sent emissaries to China to discuss with Emperor Taizong of Tang China how to better manage the tribal conflicts in the Turkic Khaganate that were causing disruption. Chinese histories talk of the meetings in which Constans II sent gifts such as red and green gems.

The same Chinese records that tell of emissaries from Constans also record that Arabs besieged Constantinople. History identifies the Arab leader as Muawiyah I, who became the first Umayyad caliph, starting a dynasty that replaced the Rashidun Caliphate. Constans had fought the Rashidun Caliphate for years, and might have lost the empire to the Umayyads completely except for a civil war in the Islamic community that disrupted their westward advance. Muawiyah made a truce with Constans (but would clash with his son, Constantine IV).

Constans wanted to re-establish the unity of the Western Roman and Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. To that end, he visited Rome, the first emperor from Constantinople to do so since the fall of the Western Empire to the Goths. He also thought it a good idea to move the center of imperial power to a more central location.

Syracuse in Sicily would be his new home. Traveling to Italy, he fought with the Lombards who were all over much of the peninsula. Once in Rome, he started stripping buildings of their facades, sending sculptures of stone and bronze back to Constantinople. (This action would in some ways be reversed in 1204.) Understandably, this angered the Italians.

The illustration shows his end. He was killed by a chamberlain in Syracuse while taking a bath. He was either stabbed or beaten with a heavy object. Details are unclear.

As I mentioned, during this time the Umayyad Caliphate was created, starting with Muawiyah I. Let's learn more about him tomorrow.

Byzantine Economy

Constantine IV had other problems besides potential usurpers and Umayyads. Because his father, Constans II, had moved the administrative seat from Constantinople to Sicily, a large part of the treasury was in the middle of the Mediterranean, not in Constantinople, where Constantine was still living. When Mizizios tried to take control of the empire in Sicily, he had possession of a large part of the empire's funding.

Not only that, but the Arab raids mentioned yesterday also meant the loss to Constantinople of some important mines that were the source of precious metals like gold and silver. This created an economic crisis which needed addressing. Constantine re-issued a copper coin that had been created by Justinian, whose reign just over a century earlier (527 - 565) was looked on by many as a golden age. Constantine took further steps to re-organize the economy to the way it was in Justinian's time. Shortly after, Constantine bore a son whom he named Justinian II, further creating the symbolism of a return to a more glorious period in Byzantine history.

Counter-attacks in Syria and Egypt that reversed some of the progress of the Arab invasions further enhance the new emperor's reputation. The death of Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah I in 680, the architect of the Arab attempt to conquer Constantinople and its territories not long before, put an end to fears of Arabs for a long time.

He then took on a challenge his father had avoided: dealing with the Monothelitism controversy. Appealed to by the patriarchs and priests, he claimed it was not his decision, but that the church must rule on whether Jesus had one nature/energy/will or two. He wrote to Pope Donus in Rome to suggest an ecumenical council to decide the matter. By the time the letter reached Rome, Donus had died, but Pope Agatho agreed to the need and ordered synods throughout the West to confirm the West's belief in the matter. This culminated in a synod in Rome, after which Agatho sent emissaries to Constantinople.

Constantine called for the Third Council of Constantinople, which was also the Sixth Ecumenical Council (depicted above in the 12th century chronicle by Constantine Manasses). The emissaries from the pope met with the Patriarch of Constantinople and all the Byzantine bishops, and the matter was settled.

Constantine had two brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius. They had also been crowned co-emperors by their father, but Constantine decided that, if he were to die, he would rather be succeeded by his son. He had both brothers mutilated by slitting their noses. This physical deformity made them ineligible to rule. When he died on 10 July 685, Justinian II succeeded him at the age of 16.

But let's not summarize the Sixth Ecumenical Council in just a sentence or two. There's a little more to the story, including an attempt to bring someone back from the dead. Come back next time and I'll tell you.

Constantine IV

Constantine's father, Constans II, died in 668 while in Sicily, and immediately some Sicilian bishops wanted someone else to take over, even though Constans had made his son co-emperor years before (in 654, when Constantine was four years old), marking his son as the rightful successor. The bishops did so because they considered Constans a heretic for his tacit support of Monothelitism. The bishops' choice—the Armenian Mizizios, a general in the Byzantine army—was not the choice of Pope Vitalian.

Reportedly, Mizizios did not want the position, but he stayed at the head of this rebellion for seven months until Constantine led an expedition to Sicily to suppress the rebels, killing Mizizios and the man who killed Constans. On the other hand, the Liber Pontificalis ("Book of Popes") recorded that it was the Exarchate of Africa (a Byzantine administrative district) that suppressed the revolt and sent Mizizios' head to Constantinople. (Years later, Mizizios' son John also rebelled in Sicily, and we are told Constantine went to Sicily to stop him; this revolt lasted seven months. It is possible that early historical records have conflated these two rebellions.)

With this slightly rocky start, the 18-year-old emperor went on to reign for 17 years. As well as rebellion to the west, he had to focus on danger from the east. There was a desire by an Umayyad Caliph, Muawiyah I, to overthrow the emperor in Constantinople. Carthage and Sicily were attacked in 667. Fleets captured or attacked other coastal cities for the next two years, and by the start of 668, Constantinople was besieged by both a land army and a fleet.

The countryside was ravaged, but the city itself was merely blockaded, not attacked. It became a waiting game. By June of 668, the Arab armies encamped around Constantinople were running out of food and malnourished. Famine followed, and an outbreak of smallpox caused the leaders to lift the siege and retreat to the town Cyzicus across the water. They continued to raid outlying Byzantine territory until they returned to Syria in 669/70.

Although he had done nothing to oppose the invaders except keep the city together, Constantine's popularity rose after the unsuccessful siege. He had other problems, however, including an economic crisis, which we'll talk about tomorrow.