An arabic geographer of the early Хth c. Ibn al-Fakih about the Byzantine theme of Chaldia: on a military policy of Constantinople within its West Caucasus and Armenian possessions at the turn of the eighth – nineth centuries

Abstract

An Arabic geographer Ibn al-Fakih, who lived, obviously, during the second half of the nineth – a beginning of the tenth centuries, mentions in his famous treatise «The Book of Countries» the provinces of Byzantine Empire, which constituted this Empire to the beginning of the tenth century. Among these provinces the geographer enumerates the province of Chaldia with official centre in the city of Trapezund (modern Trabzon in Turkey), this province located at the North-West of Asia Minor. With this respect, the author of the present paper asks how, when and why this province was established, moreover, how an administrative rank of this region was changed. To answer this question the author turned to different sources, not only Greek-Latin (the seals, which mention the officials of Chaldia, a letter of the Emperor Michael II, who reigned in 820–829), but also the Georgian (chronicles and lives of saints translated to Russian and modern West Europe languages). Having based on this evidence, the author concluded that the province of Chaldia as a selfsufficient Byzantine territorial unit was established between 736 and 781, then it possessed a rank of a civil province. The reason of establishment of Chaldia was a devastating incursion of Arabic general Muhammad ibn Marwan in the West Caucasus regions, this incursion occurred just in 736–737 – during this campaign Muhammad ibn Marwan ravaged also many Byzantine West Caucasus possessions, including the fortress of Tsikhegoji (Archaeopolis) at the bank of Tekhura River. The Byzantines evacuated a garrison of this fortress and located these troops in Chaldia, troops were headed by two tourmarches, but a governor of the whole province was the so-called chief commerkiarios, a civil official. At the end of the eighth century, during the 790th, this province obtained a new rank of the theme – a military-administrative territorial district, a governor of this district was a military official called strategos, he combined two branches of power, that are military and civilian. The reason of such a conversion was an intention of Constantinople to stop a further territorial extending of the kingdom of Abchazia within West Caucasus lands and to prevent an invasion of Abchazian troops in Byzantine Minor Asia lands immediately.