Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, Episode 132, Escalating Violence.

Last episode we discussed Constantine VII's first four years as Soul Emperor. His failure

to retake Crete was in part offset by the capture of Theodosiaopolis in the East, and it's

in the East where we will spend today's show. The Vasi-Lafs was interested in peace. The

fall of the old Roman capital of Armenia gave the Empire a frontier that it could live with.

Unfortunately though, the Emia of Aleppo, Safaddorla, could not. His authority rested on his

leadership of the Jihad, and so war between Roman and Arab forces was set to continue.

We therefore need to know a little more about the leadership on the Byzantine side,

so it's time to welcome back the Focuss clan.

The origins of the family have been much debated, with Roman, Armenian, and Arab ancestors all

suggested. What we know for sure is that they became major landowners in Cappadocia,

rose to command positions in the army, and considered themselves to be as Roman as anyone.

During the end of the century I talked about the text on skirmishing. This is the military manual

which Nysephra's focus will commission once he's in charge of the army. It was one of the sources

for the House of War episode, where I described a theoretical ambush on an Arab raiding party.

In it, the author sets out the tactics which should be used to combat enemy forces raiding Anatolia.

One of the comments in this work is that Armenian soldiers are inadequate. The author claims that

they are generally lazy and unreliable and need to be monitored if given important responsibilities.

This racial profiling is entirely in keeping with traditional Roman snobbery.

So, we don't get a sense that the Focards, as the leading magnet family on the Eastern Front,

had an entirely different outlook from those back in Constantinople.

Given that they had plentiful lands and herds to protect, it's no surprise that the family

...