The Siege of Chandax: The Byzantine Recovery of Crete 960-961 (original) (raw)
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Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum, XVIII: 141-160, 2024
Nikephoros Phokas’ defeat of the Islamic Emirate of Crete in 961 AD is one of the most renowned examples of Reconquista celebrated by ancient authors and dealt with by modern historians. Transcending its historical and contextual framework, both in the past as in the present, this case of Reconquista has often come to take on further symbolic meanings, as a paradigm of an ideological and political confrontation between the worlds of Christianity and Islam. The aim of this article is to reassess the significance of this episode, with specific regard to how it relates to the preceding period of the Emirate, questioning the extent to which it can be regarded as the prodigious event of liberation of the island celebrated by textual sources and modern folklore as an archetype of the 19th-century patriotic struggle against the Ottoman occupation of the island.
Diogenes, 2021
The conquest of the Emirate of Crete by Nikephoros Phokas in 961, during the reign of Romanos II, is the subject of a poem written shortly after by Theodosios the Deacon, an otherwise unknown figure. Near the end of the poem there is a description of Roman soldiers killing Cretan civilians. This description contrasts with the historiographical sources on the conquest of Crete that either do not mention such an event or explicitly claim that Phokas stopped his soldiers from killing the unarmed. This paper will explore this disparity and show how the description of killings in Chandax serves Theodosios the Deacon in his attempt to portray the heroes of his tale as instruments of God's wrath against the Arabs of Crete. This paper will also aim to contribute to the discussion on the idea of 'holy war' in Byzantium.
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