The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829–842

Byzantium began to emerge from an era of grim, defensive warfare in the 820s. It was still a highly militarised state but was now ready to discard guerrilla methods for a more conventional style of combat. There were signs of revival in the economic and cultural fields. All of this was despite the political instability caused by the rebellion of Thomas the Slav in the early 820s and the damage inflicted on Byzantine resources by the disastrous Bulgarian war (811–16) initiated by Nikephoros I (802–11). By the late 820s the Amorian regime, established in a bloody coup by Michael II (820–9), had consolidated its position, binding together a core group of Armenian families through a network of marriage alliances. Michael’s son and heir Theophilos was well placed to move to a more aggressive policy towards Byzantium’s great eastern adversary, the Islamic imperial state of the early Middle Ages. Juan Signes Codoñer, joint editor with Michael Featherstone of the forthcoming critical edition of Theophanes Continuatus, Books I–IV, has written what is, in effect, a massive commentary on Book III, which covers Theophilos’ reign (829–42). His prosopographical analysis of the political base of the regime builds on a recent, meticulous study by Christian Settipani of the Caucasian element in the governing elite of Byzantium from the sixth to the ninth centuries. He refrains from delving into the intricacies of the second phase of Iconoclasm, partly on the sensible grounds that we cannot know what were the personal beliefs of emperors or how strongly these beliefs were held. He is surely right to suggest that whatever moves they made were largely dictated by political and religious pressures at the time. His principal concern is with foreign relations in the most active arena of diplomacy and conflict at the time, the Middle East and the lands to north and south of the Caucasus. He has much that is original to offer to the careful reader of the text of Theophanes Continuatus and the closely associated history of Joseph Genesios

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