| Siege of Nicaea | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theArab–Byzantine wars | |||||||
 Map of Anatolia (Asia Minor) in 740 AD. Nicaea is located at the northwestern corner of the Anatolian peninsula | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Byzantine Empire | Umayyad Caliphate | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Artabasdos | Mu'awiya ibn Hisham Abdallah al-Battal | ||||||
Thesiege of Nicaea of 727 was an unsuccessful attempt by theUmayyad Caliphate to capture theByzantine city ofNicaea, the capital of theOpsician Theme. Ever since its failure tocapture the Byzantine Empire's capital,Constantinople, in 717–718, the Caliphate had launched a series of raids into ByzantineAsia Minor. In 727, the Arab army, led by one of the Caliph's sons, penetrated deep into Asia Minor, sacked two Byzantine fortresses and in late July arrived beforeNicaea. Despite constant attacks for 40 days, the city held firm and the Arabs withdrew and returned to the Caliphate. The successful repulsion of the attack was a major boost for Byzantine emperorLeo III the Isaurian's recently initiated campaign toabolish the veneration oficons in the Empire; Leo claimed it as evidence of divine favour for his policy. The siege of Nicaea marks also the high point of the Umayyad raids, as new threats and defeats on their far-flung frontiers decreased Umayyad strength elsewhere, while Byzantine power strengthened afterwards.
Following the failure of theyear-long assault by theUmayyad armies on theByzantine capitalConstantinople in 717–718, a short period of peace followed as the Umayyads licked their wounds, suppressed the rebellion ofYazid ibn al-Muhallab, and re-assessed their priorities.[1][2][3] When warfare on the Arab–Byzantine frontier recommenced in 720, the strategic focus of the Caliphate had shifted away from outright conquest. The Muslim raids across theTaurus Mountains into ByzantineAsia Minor still occurred regularly every spring and summer, sometimes accompanied by naval raids and followed by a winter expedition; they devastated large tracts of Asia Minor, and destroyed several fortresses; but the Arabs did not attempt to hold on to captured strongholds on the west side of the Taurus Mountains.[4] Byzantine reaction during these years was passive, as the Empire still nursed its strength against the vastly superior resources of the Caliphate. The Byzantines did not obstruct or confront the raiding Arab armies, but rather retreated to well-fortified positions scattered throughout Asia Minor.[5]
After the accession of CaliphHisham (r. 723–743), the scale and ambition of the Muslim raids grew. One of the most prominent Umayyad leaders in these campaigns was Hisham's sonMu'awiya, who led expeditions in 725 and 726, the first of which went as far west asDorylaion.[6][7]
In summer 727,[8] another large-scale invasion was led by Mu'awiya, withAbdallah al-Battal heading the vanguard of the army.[9][10] The Byzantine chroniclerTheophanes the Confessor claims that the vanguard alone numbered 15,000 men and the entire invasion force 100,000, clearly a grossly inflated number according to some scholars.[11][12] Theophanes also records a certain Amr as Mu'awiya's second-in-command, but Arab sources are unambiguous in this regard.[13][14] The Arab army moved west into northwestern Asia Minor, and the vanguard under al-Battal attacked and sacked the town ofGangra inPaphlagonia and a place called in Arab sources Tabya, possibly the fort of Ateous inPhrygia. Gangra was razed to the ground, but during the attack on Tabya the Arabs, especially theAntiochene contingent, are said to have suffered heavy losses.[9][10]
From there, the Arabs turned west towardsNicaea, the chief city ofBithynia and capital of the powerfulOpsician Theme.[3][10] The Arabs arrived before the city in late July, with al-Battal's vanguard preceding the main army. The Byzantines, probably under the command of the Count of the Opsicians,Artabasdos, did not meet them in the field, but instead retreated behind the city's walls. The Arabs assaulted the city for forty days, employingsiege engines which destroyed a part of the walls, but eventually failed to take it. In late August, they raised the siege and departed, taking many captives and much booty.[9][10][15][16] The 12th-century chronicle ofMichael the Syrian claims that the city's inhabitants abandoned it and fled by ship throughLake Ascania, whereupon the Arabs destroyed Nicaea, but this is clearly an error.[17]
The repulsion of the Arab assault on Nicaea was an important success for the Byzantines. EmperorLeo III the Isaurian (r. 717–741) regarded the city's survival as a sign of divine favour towards his newly institutediconoclastic policies, and was encouraged to drive them further.[18] This is probably related to an incident mentioned in the account of Theophanes, where a certain Constantine, who served as a groom (strator) to Artabasdos, threw a stone on an icon of theVirgin Mary and then trampled on it. The soldier was killed the next day by a catapult, a fact which Theophanes reports as evidence of divine vengeance. However, this passage shows strong signs of tampering by the fervently anti-iconoclast Theophanes, from what was probably originally a pro-iconoclast story.[19]
Militarily, the siege of Nicaea was the high-water-mark of the post-718 Umayyad raids; never again would Umayyad armies penetrate as deeply into Asia Minor.[20] Increasingly thereafter theSyro-Jaziran army, that provided the manpower for the raids against Byzantium, was diverted in thehard and fruitless wars against theKhazars in theCaucasus: the Khazars inflicted aheavy defeat on the Muslims in 730, and a Byzantine–Khazar alliance was sealed by the marriage of Leo III's son and heirConstantine V (r. 741–775) with the Khazar princessIrene shortly after.[21][22] Over the next few years, while Byzantine strength revived, the Muslim military situation on all fronts of the over-extended Caliphate deteriorated. Consequently, in the 730s, Arab raids were mostly limited to the immediate frontier regions and their successes became fewer. By 740, when the Umayyads assembled the largest invasion force fielded after 718, the Byzantines had recovered enough to inflict a heavy defeat against them at theBattle of Akroinon.[23][24]
40°25.74′N29°43.17′E / 40.42900°N 29.71950°E /40.42900; 29.71950
