The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

much changed in administrative and financial terms. It makes sense in many
instances to see late antiquity as extending well into the Umayyad period, but
this mainly eastern continuity should not obscure the drastic reduction and
refocusing of the eastern empire which was also taking place. The ‘Arab con-
quests’ of the seventh century did not happen as quickly as the term suggests
(though the early advance into Syria was dramatic), or without struggles and
setbacks, but by the early eighth century the Mediterranean world was a very
different place. The powerful Sasanian kingdom had fallen, and a new and
powerful regime controlled the former Roman provinces in the east, Egypt and
North Africa and much of Anatolia. Attempts on Constantinople, culminat-
ing in a potentially disastrous siege in 717–18, were repulsed. The Arabs failed
in their hope of conquering Byzantium, but the emperors in Constantinople
ruled a drastically reduced territory, the Muslims were already in Spain and the
Mediterranean had become a dangerous place.^5

Rome and Persia from Justinian to Heraclius

We are well informed about the new campaigns conducted against the Sasa-
nians by Justin II (565–78), Tiberius (578–82) and Maurice (582–602), Jus-
tinian’s successors in the late sixth century, and about the fi nal struggle be-
tween Rome and Persia in the years 603–30. In Greek, the history written by
Menander Protector, which continued that of Agathias, is preserved only in
fragments, but thanks to the interest in diplomacy shown by later Byzantine
compilers, we have substantial sections relating to Byzantine–Persian rela-
tions under Justin II and Tiberius. The Histories of Theophylact Simocatta,
written in the reign of Heraclius (AD 610–41), give a detailed account of the
reign of the Emperor Maurice,^6 and there is a wide range of other sourc-
es, from the Chronicon Paschale and later chronicles to the epic poems which
George of Pisidia wrote about Heraclius’s wars. To these we can add a wealth
of material in Syriac, especially chronicles, and the seventh-century Armenian
chronicle attributed to the bishop Sebeos.^7 The Persian conquest and occupa-
tion of Jerusalem in 614 is very well documented by contemporaries, and later
Greek, Syriac and Arabic sources are all important, especially for the years
that saw the early stages of the Arab conquests and the end of the Sasanian
kingdom.^8 This wealth of evidence is often diffi cult to use because much of it
is fragmentary or written with a religious or partisan bias, while the problems
surrounding the evidence for the early stages of Islam and the Arab conquests
also give rise to extremely polarized positions among scholars. Not surpris-
ingly, a huge amount of secondary literature has grown up, of which only the
most important and the most helpful contributions can be referred to here.
But again, this is a fi eld in which there has been an explosion of recent schol-
arship, but also to which useful guides now exist.
Despite the ‘Endless Peace’ of 561, continuing grievances between the two
powers emerged as soon as the usual embassy was sent to Chosroes after Jus-
tin II’s succession in 565, and the new emperor adopted the same aggressive