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The Grand Strategy of
the Byzantine Empire

E D WA R D N . L U T T WA K

THE BELKNAP PRESS OF

H A R VA R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2009
Copyright © 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Luttwak, Edward.
The grand strategy of the Byzantine Empire / Edward N. Luttwak.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-03519-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Byzantine Empire—Military policy.
2. Strategy—History—To 1500. 3. Military art and science—Byzantine Empire—
History. 4. Imperialism—History—To 1500. 5. Byzantine Empire—History, Military.
6. Byzantine Empire—Foreign relations. I. Title.
U163.L86 2009
355′.033549500902—dc22 2009011799
 Contents

List of Maps vii

Preface ix

I The Invention of Byzantine Strategy 1

1 Attila and the Crisis of Empire 17

2 The Emergence of the New Strategy 49

II Byzantine Diplomacy: The Myth and the Methods 95

3 Envoys 97

4 Religion and Statecraft 113

5 The Uses of Imperial Prestige 124

6 Dynastic Marriages 137

7 The Geography of Power 145

8 Bulghars and Bulgarians 171

9 The Muslim Arabs and Turks 197

vi • Contents

III The Byzantine Art of War 235

10 The Classical Inheritance 239

11 The Strategikon of Maurikios 266

12 After the Strategikon 304

13 Leo VI and Naval Warfare 322

14 The Tenth-Century Military Renaissance 338

15 Strategic Maneuver: Herakleios Defeats Persia 393

Conclusion: Grand Strategy and the Byzantine

“Operational Code” 409

Appendix: Was Strategy Feasible in Byzantine Times? 421

Emperors from Constantine I to Constantine XI 423

Glossary 427

Notes 433

Works Cited 473

Index of Names 491

General Index 495

 Maps

1. The division of the empire after

the death of Theodosius I in 395 2
2. The Great Eurasian Steppe 8
3. The defenses of Constantinople 68
4. The empire at the accession and
death of Justinian, 527–565 82
5. The empire in 1025 at the death of Basil II 194
6. The Muslim offensives, 662–740 200
7. The empire in 668, after the Slav, Lombard,
and Muslim invasions 213
8. The empire in 780, after the Muslim conquests
and the Bulghar settlement 216
9. The empire in 1081 at the accession of
Alexios I Komnenos 228
10. The empire in 1143 at the death of John II Komnenos 230
11. The empire at the death of
Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1282 233
12. The Sasanian empire, ca. 226–ca. 651 394
13. The empire in 565, 1025, and 1360 411
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 Preface

Once largely neglected, as if the entire Roman empire had really ended
in 476, the eastern half that we call Byzantine by modern habit now at-
tracts so much attention that it is even the subject of popular histories.
While many are interested in the culture of Byzantium, it is the epic
struggle to defend the empire for century after century against an un-
ending sequence of enemies that seems to resonate especially in our own
times. This book is devoted to one dimension of Byzantine history: the
application of method and ingenuity in the use of both persuasion and
force—that is to say, strategy in all its aspects, from higher statecraft
down to military tactics.
When I first started to study Byzantine strategy in earnest, I had just
completed a book on the strategy of the Roman empire up to the third
century that continues to attract both inordinate praise and strenuous
criticism. My original intention was simply to write a second volume to
cover the subsequent centuries. What ensued instead was the discovery
of an altogether richer body of strategy than the earlier Romans had
ever possessed, which called for a vastly greater effort of research and
composition. In the end, this lasted for more than two decades, albeit
with many interruptions—some due to my not entirely unrelated work
in applying military strategy in the field. There was one compensation
for this prolonged delay: several essential Byzantine texts once available
only as scarcely accessible manuscripts, or in antiquated editions replete
with errors, have now been published in reliable form. Also, a consider-
x • Preface

able number of important new works of direct relevance to Byzantine

strategy have been published since I started on my quest long ago.
For in recent years Byzantine studies have indeed flourished as never
before. A great wave of first-class scholarship has illuminated many a
dark corner of Byzantine and world history—and it has also inspired a
climate of high-spirited generosity among the practitioners. Although I
am more student than scholar in this field, I have experienced this gener-
osity in the fullest measure.
Soon after I started reading for this book, circa 1982, George Dennis,
whose translation of the Strategikon is the most widely read of Byz-
antine military texts, gave me an advance typescript of his work that
would be published as Three Byzantine Military Treatises. Twenty-six
years later, he sent me a typescript of part of his eagerly awaited edition
of Leo’s Taktika, which I urgently needed to complete this book; gener-
osity is mere habit for George T. Dennis of the Society of Jesus. Walter
E. Kaegi Jr., whose works illuminate the field, also gave me valuable ad-
vice early on.
Others whom I had never even met, but simply importuned without
prior introduction, nevertheless responded as if bound by old friend-
ship and collegial obligations. Peter B. Golden, the eminent Turcologist
amply cited in these pages, answered many questions, offered valu-
able suggestions, and lent me two otherwise unobtainable books. John
Wortley entrusted me with the unique copy of his own annotated type-
script of Scylitzes. Peter Brennan and Salvatore Cosentino offered im-
portant advice, while Eric McGeer and Paul Stephenson and Denis F.
Sullivan, whose work is here conscripted at length, read drafts of this
book, uncovering errors and offering important advice. John F. Haldon,
whose writings constitute a library of Byzantine studies in themselves,
responded to a stranger’s imposition with a detailed critique of an early
draft.
Because what follows is intended for non-specialists as well, I asked
two such, Anthony Harley and Kent Karlock, to comment on the
lengthy text; I am grateful for their hard work, considered opinions, and
corrections. A third reader was Hans Rausing, not a specialist but a pro-
found and multilingual student of history, and to him I owe valuable ob-
servations. Stephen P. Glick applied both his encyclopedic knowledge of
military historiography and his meticulous attention to the text, leaving
his mark on this book. Nicolò Miscioscia was my able assistant for a
season. Christine Col and Joseph E. Luttwak researched and graphically
prepared all the maps, no easy task amidst endless revisions. Michael
 Preface • xi

Aronson, senior editor for social sciences at Harvard University Press,

was the active proponent of my earlier book on Roman grand strategy a
long time ago. It was with unending patience over two decades that he
asked for this book as well, and his experienced enthusiasm is manifest
in the physical quality of the publication, an effort in which he was ably
assisted by Donna Bouvier and Hilary S. Jacqmin of the Press. It was
most fortunate that they commissioned Wendy Nelson to serve as manu-
script editor. With infinite care and talented discernment she uncovered
many a stealthy error, and gently indicated infelicities in need of remedy.
Finally, it is a pleasure to thank Alice-Mary Talbot, also here cited, Di-
rector of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and
the always helpful Deb Brown Stewart, Byzantine studies librarian at
Dumbarton Oaks. I might have dithered forever instead of finally com-
posing the text had I not met Peter James MacDonald Hall, who de-
manded the book and removed the excuse of all other work.
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire
W part one

The Invention of
Byzantine Strategy

When the administration of the Roman empire was divided in the year
395 between the two sons of Theodosius I, with the western portion go-
ing to Honorius and the eastern to his brother Arkadios, few could have
foretold the drastically different fates of the two halves. Defended by
Germanic field commanders, then dominated by Germanic warlords,
increasingly penetrated by mostly Germanic migrants with or without
imperial consent, then fragmented by outright invasions, the western
half of the empire progressively lost tax revenues, territorial control,
and its Roman political identity in a process so gradual that the removal
of the last imperial figurehead, Romulus Augustus, on September 4,
476, was mere formality. There were local accommodations with the in-
vaders in places, even some episodes of cultural integration, but the
newly fashionable vision of an almost peaceful immigration and a grad-
ual transformation into a benign late antiquity is contradicted by the
detailed evidence of violence, destruction, and the catastrophic loss of
material amenities and educational attainments that would not be re-
covered for a thousand years, if then.1
Very different was the fate of the eastern half of the Roman empire
commanded from Constantinople. That is the empire we call Byzantine
by modern habit though it was never anything but Roman to its rulers
and their subjects, the romaioi, who could hardly identify with provin-
cial Byzantion, the ancient Greek city that Constantine had converted
into his imperial capital and New Rome in the year 330. Having sub-
dued its own Germanic warlords and outmaneuvered Attila’s Huns in
the supreme crisis of the fifth century that extinguished its western
Map 1. The division of the empire after the death of Theodosius I in 395
 The Invention of Byzantine Strategy • 3

counterpart, the Byzantine empire acquired the strategic method with

which it resisted successive waves of invaders for more than eight hun-
dred years by the shortest reckoning.
Again and again the eastern empire was attacked by new and old ene-
mies advancing from the immensity of the Eurasian steppe, from the
Iranian plateau homeland of empires, from the Mediterranean coasts
and Mesopotamia, which came under Islamic rule in the seventh cen-
tury, and finally from the reinvigorated western lands as well. Yet the
empire did not collapse in defeat until the conquest of Constantinople in
the name of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, to then revive once more in
much-diminished form until the final Ottoman victory of 1453.
Sheer military strength was enough to provide ample security for the
Roman empire when it was still undivided and prosperous, encompass-
ing all the lands around the entire Mediterranean and reaching deep
beyond them. Moderate taxation and voluntary recruitment were suf-
ficient to keep fleets and some three hundred thousand troops in con-
stant training in frontier forts and legionary garrisons, from which de-
tachments (vexillationes) could be gathered in field armies to suppress
rare internal rebellions or repel foreign invaders.2 But until the third
century, the Romans rarely had to fight to obtain the benefits of their
military strength.
In every frontier province there were flourishing cities and imperial
granaries to tempt the empire’s neighbors, but they usually preferred a
hungry peace to the certainty of harsh Roman reprisals or even outright
annihilation. Commanding superior combat strength, the Romans at
their imperial peak could freely choose between pure deterrence with
retaliation if needed, which required only field armies, and an active
defense of the frontiers that required garrisons everywhere, and both
were tried in succession during the first two centuries of our era. Even
later, when old and new enemies beyond the Rhine and Danube co-
alesced into mighty warrior confederations, while in the east formidable
Sasanian Persia replaced its weaker predecessor Arsacid Parthia, Ro-
man armies were still strong enough to contain them effectively with a
new strategy of defense-in-depth.3
The Byzantines never had such an abundance of strength. In 395
the empire’s administrative division—it was not yet a political division,
for both brothers jointly ruled both parts—followed the boundaries
between east and west first decreed by Diocletian (284–305), which
bisected the entire Mediterranean basin into two almost equal halves.
It was a neat division, but it left the eastern Roman empire with three
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