Michael Baizerman Author

  My new chapter is called "The Siege of Chandax." This city, the capital of the Emirate of Crete (c. 924-961), was under siege by the Byzantine army between July 960 and March 961. Despite the numerical advantage, it took the general Nikephoros Phokas over seven months to take over the fortified location.  It was a great victory since Crete, the erstwhile Roman enclave, was under Muslim domination for nearly 140 years. The island lay at the crossroads of routes connecting Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt, i.e., the eastern Mediterranean. The Cretan navy endangered trade lanes in the Aegean, took control of several islands, and ravaged the mainland.  The Emirate was a wealthy polity and a convenient way station for Egyptian and Syrian fleets poised against the East Roman Empire.  There are many blank spots about Muslim Crete and the Byzantine recovery. I am trying to scramble through Byzantine and Arab sources to scribble a readable and trustworthy sto...

  I will devote this chapter to t he Byzantine admiral, Niketas Ooryphas's  indigenous decision  to transfer his dromons along the long-forgotten land route across the Isthmus of Corinth. He did this unusual deed to catch his opponent, Photios, the admiral of the Cretan Muslim fleet, off guard. I picked up this character because I want to show the tactical depth of medieval naval commanders.  This chapter belongs to Unit II of my project,  The Intricacies of Naval Warfare. Up until now, it has included four chapters:       1.   Naval Factories, where I describe medieval naval bases.          2.  The Battle of Ad Decimum. The collision of the Byzantine Empire with the Vandals, without a maritime battle but with the participation of the East Roman fleet, where we, for the first time, discern the use of dromons.         3.  The Omayyad Siege of Constantinople (August 717...