Ethnikoi and Xenikoi, Mercenaries and Allies: To the Problem of Byzantine Terminology in Relation to Foreign Mercenaries in the Middle of the 9th – 11th Centuries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52575/2687-0967-2024-51-2-344-353Keywords:
Byzantium, Byzantine army, military mercenarism, mercenaries, allies, foreigners, strangers, terminologyAbstract
The article is devoted to the problem of Byzantine terminology used to designate foreign mercenary soldiers who served in the armed forces of the Byzantine Empire in the middle of the 9th – 11th centuries, namely to the content and correlation of the four main terms: «foreigners» (oi ethnikoi), «strangers» (oi xenoi, oi xenikoi), «allies» (oi symmachoi) and «mercenaries» (oi misthophoroi). The research is based on a systemic-institutional approach in a comprehensive analysis of the information and lexicon of Byzantine sources represented by military-political treatises, taktikons, legends of seals, regulations and historical writings. The main views on the problem expressed in the works of J. Shepard, G. Theotokis, A. Kaldellis and S. Kyriakidis. The author concludes that the official designation for foreign soldiers in the Byzantine state of the considered period was the term «oi ethnikoi». Unofficially such contingents were called either strangers or foreigners, indicating their ethnic otherness and foreignness to the people and empire of the Romans, and either mercenaries and allies, i.e. words reflecting their military-political and socio-legal status. The existence and use by Byzantine authors of a model of a clear distinction between the military contingents of the allies and mercenaries is questioned. It is assumed that both terms were used as equivalent.
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The work was carried out without external sources of funding.
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