The euphemistically named Guests from Overseas, painting by Nicholas Roerich, depicting a Viking (or Varangian) raid, Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (public domain image – Wikipedia “Viking Expansion”)

(11) VIKING EXPANSION (793 – 1066)

A historical explosion like the Arab conquests, in far-flung scale if not territorial conquest – a longboat blitzkrieg across four continents, albeit if only on the peripheries of three of them.

Europe was the focus of Viking expansion, not surprisingly given its Scandinavian origin – Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In turn, the Viking expansion might be classified broadly as westwards or eastwards, the former with a focus on the British Isles and France, the latter with a focus on Russia.

The British Isles set the archetype of Viking expansion – raids followed by conquest and settlement – as well as the timeline I’ve used in this entry.

That timeline – often dubbed the Viking Age – typically starts with the first Viking raids in England and ends with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Ironically, the better event in 1066 for it is the failed invasion of England by the Norwegian king, defeated at the Battle of Samford Bridge by the Saxon king Harold Godwinson, who then went on to be defeated by the Normans in the more famous Battle of Hastings.

However, one might argue for a longer Viking Age extending to the fifteenth century, as the king of Norway retained fiefdoms in Scottish islands such as Shetland or Orkney until that century. However, the tendency among historians is to identify that the various Viking polities, particularly the Scandinavian monarchies, were no longer Vikings once they became Christian.

Probably the most famous part of the Viking expansion in the British Isles or at least England was the Danish conquest or settlement in England known as the Danelaw, particularly under King Canute or Cnut – you don’t want to mix up the letters in the latter.

In Ireland, the most famous part were the Viking kingdoms – strikingly including that in Dublin although many of Ireland’s first large towns were Viking conquests or settlements – and their defeat by the Irish High King Brian Boru, particularly in the Battle of Clontarf

Otherwise, the Vikings pretty much raided the entire Atlantic coastline of western Europe – with the most famous part here being the Viking settlement under their leader Rollo that became Normandy within the Frankish kingdom in France. The Normans went on to their own Norman Conquests that were almost as expansive as the Viking Expansion from which they originated – but is best considered as distinct from it since they rapidly became Christian as well as acculturated or intermixed with the French population.

The Vikings didn’t stop at the Atlantic coastline of Western Europe, raiding – and trading – in the Mediterranean as well, certainly in the Iberian peninsula but possibly also as far as Italy, north Africa, Egypt and the Byzantine Empire. There’s Africa as one of the four continents of Viking expansion by the way – I told you the other three continents were only on their periphery. However, the Norman conquests were to prove more notable in the Mediterranean – notably actually conquering territory in northern Africa.

So that’s the westward Viking expansion in Europe – the eastward expansion extended along the Baltic coastline and rivers in Russia, where they were known as Varangians. The focus and most famous part of this eastward expansion was their kingdom known as Kievan Rus’ and their contacts with the Byzantine Empire, which saw Viking expansion to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. There’s Asia as another continent of Viking expansion, albeit again on the periphery.

The fourth continent was North America, albeit by exploration and settlement via Iceland and Greenland which extended at its very furthest fringe to Newfoundland, known as Vinland.

What is particularly intriguing are the various theories of what drove the Viking expansion. Some of the usual suspects have been proposed but not confirmed – demographic (population or youth bulge), economic (growing trade and urbanization for targets), ideological (paganism vs Christianity), political (the “pull” of weak, decentralized states in Europe against the “push” of stronger centralized states in Scandinavia), technological (Viking shipbuilding), and even climate (favorable conditions for sailing).

However, my personal favorite theory is that they were horny – and not on their helmets (which I understand may be something of a historical myth in any event). That is, the s€xual theory of Viking Expansion – it was to seek out or capture women due to a shortage of available women in Scandinavia for young men.

Go Greek fire you’re burning up the quarter mile
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
Go Greek fire you’re coasting through the heat lap trials
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream for Greek fire – Greek fire in Byzantine manuscript

(10) ARAB CONQUESTS (622 – 751 AD)

The Arab conquests were a nigh-unstoppable historical explosion, once previously divided tribes in a historical backwater had been united under Mohammed – conquering one of history’s largest pre-modern empires (indeed the seventh or eighth largest in all history) on three continents in a little over a century, a blitzkrieg by horse, sail…and camel!

 “In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting.”

Mohammed had essentially conquered the Arabian peninsula, but his death left his successors – the three great Arab caliphates – only at the start of extending his empire to even wider conquests.

The Rashidun Caliphate, immediate successors to Mohammed, did most of the heavy lifting to break out of the Arabian peninsula. Two formidable empires blocked their path, the Persian Empire and the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, but the Arabs conquered the former and routed the latter back to Anatolia.

However, it was under their successors, the Umayyad Caliphate, that Arab conquests reached their greatest extent, westwards from the north African shore to Europe itself – conquering Spain (well, not quite all, in a manner similar to the famous caveat to the Roman conquest of Gaul in Asterix comics) and famously invading France before being turned back at Tours by Charles Martel.

Eastwards, the Umayyads also extended beyond Persia through central Asia to the fringes of India and China – the latter of which presented even the Tang Empire some difficulty resisting their advance.

The Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750 AD and the Abbasids then formed the third great Arab caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, who then presided over what is often regarded as the Golden Age of Islam from their capital in Baghdad. The surviving Umayyad dynasty fled into exile across the Mediterranean to Spain, continuing their Caliphate as the Emirate of Cordoba independent from the Abbasids, even with their own rival golden age of Islam in the fabled Al-Andalus of Spain.

Although the Abbasids made some more territorial gains – notably Sicily and Crete – their Caliphate saw an end to the rapid Arab conquests, albeit with victory against Tang China in the Battle of Talas in 751 AD as a postscript:

“Muslim armies had come against a combination of natural barriers and powerful states that impeded any further military progress. The wars produced diminishing returns … The priorities of the rulers also shifted from conquest of new lands to administration of the acquired empire … the period of rapid centralized expansion would now give way to an era when further spread of Islam would be slow and accomplished through the efforts of local dynasties, missionaries, and traders.”

One is spoilt for choice for wars in the century and more of Arab conquests, but if one were to choose the wars that best encapsulate them as a whole, it would be the Arab-Byzantine wars from 629 AD to 718 AD.

The Byzantine or eastern Roman empire was the first state of substance that the Arabs faced when breaking out from their peninsula. It seemed incredible that the Arabs could defeat such a firmly established state, even when that state was weakened from recent war with Persia, yet they did – routing it back to Anatolia as they conquered its other territory in Asia and Africa, which then became their springboard for further conquests.

Ironically, it then seemed incredible that the Byzantines could hold the line or withstand complete defeat or conquest by the Arabs as the latter went from one victory to another – yet they did, from Arab attacks by land and by sea, even as the Arabs besieged Constantinople twice, in 674-678 AD and in 717-718 AD. Among other things, the Byzantine superweapon Greek fire was instrumental in their success.

The frontiers of Arab conquest finally stabilized between them in Anatolia, as it did elsewhere under the Abbasid caliphate at about this time, until from about 863 AD when the Byzantines – incredibly again – were able to regain both the initiative and some of their former territory, in wars usually reversed in name to the Byzantine-Arab wars to signify Byzantine ascendance.

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Rock face relief at Naqshe-Rostam, depicting the victories of the Sassanid Persian emperor Shapur I over the Roman Emperors Valerian and Philip the Arab. Do you want emperors captured by Persians? Because that’s how you get emperors captured by Persians…

(9) ROMAN-PERSIAN WARS

The first world war, fought intermittently on the frontier between successive Roman and Persian polities over almost seven centuries.

No, seriously. Well, half seriously.

The Roman-Persian Wars were a world war, or war between two different worlds – that might have been fought on the frontier between them, a little like the Western Front writ large (and long) but had ramifications or repercussions throughout both empires that extended across Eurasia from Britain to India.

And that comparison to the First World War’s Western Front writ large and long stands. Despite seven slugging centuries of grinding war, the Roman-Persian border remained remarkably stable.

“One has the impression that the blood spilled in the warfare between the two states brought as little real gain to one side or the other as the few meters of land gained at terrible cost in the trench warfare of the First World War.”

That is, until the last dramatic phase of the wars, the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628 – which might be compared to the similarly abrupt and dramatic reversals of fortune in 1917-1918 that ultimately saw the end of the First World War. However, even that last war of the Roman-Persian Wars effectively ended with the restoration of the status quo (and border) between the two empires.

The Roman-Persian Wars are an interesting contrast to those other Persian Wars of antiquity, the Greek-Persian Wars, in lacking the same existential stakes or outcomes – with the Greek city-states desperately defending themselves from outright conquest by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the classical Greek-Persian Wars, and Alexander the Great conquering that same empire outright in his Macedonian-Persian Wars.

The latter always struck me as incredible in contrast to the failure of the Romans, more powerful and commanding more resources than either Alexander or their own Persian adversaries, to achieve anything like Alexander’s decisive defeat and conquest of Persia. That is despite the Romans, at least emperors Caracalla and Julian, expressly seeking to emulate Alexander. The reality seems to have been that for the most part neither side did little more than essentially raid each other over the frontier, with the Romans famously sacking the Persian capital Ctesiphon numerous times.

The Roman-Persian Wars might be classified into four phases, corresponding to three successive Roman polities and two Persian ones – not to mention Armenia bouncing back and forth between the two empires as client state or protectorate.

First, there was Roman Republic against the Parthians – initiated by the invasion of Mesopotamia by Roman general Crassus, which saw one of the Republic’s most crushing defeats at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. However, the Parthians did nothing to exploit this defeat or the subsequent civil wars of the Republic with one notable exception, as they generally sought to remain on peaceful terms with the Romans. That notable exception was their support of the so-called Liberators – the assassins of Julius Caesar – and invasion of the Roman eastern provinces after the Liberators’ defeat. The Romans defeated the Parthian invasion, but the Parthians then defeated the retributive campaign by Mark Antony against them.

Second, there was the Roman Empire against the Parthians, which saw five major wars between them, mostly to the defeat of the Parthians with their capital Ctesiphon sacked three times and four Roman emperors claiming the title of Persicus Maximus. Those wars were the Roman-Parthian War of 58-63 AD (with the Roman campaign led by the general Corbulo under emperor Nero), Trajan’s campaign into Parthia, the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166 AD under Roman emperor Lucius Verus (the co-emperor of Marcus Aurelius), the campaign of Roman emperor Septimius Severus in 195-197 AD, and finally the Parthian War of Caracalla in 216-217 AD.

Third, there was the Roman Empire against the Sassanids or Sasanians, successors to the Parthians. The Sassanids were very different to the Parthians in hostile character towards Rome – in the words of Youtuber Tominus Maximus, “Sassanid Persia was like Parthia…on cocaine and mixed with crystal meth”. Most famously, there were the Sassanid incursions deep into the Roman eastern provinces during the Crisis of the Third Century, after fighting between them during the reign of Roman emperor Severus Alexander.

However, the Romans subsequently defeated the Sassanids, sacking Ctesiphon a further two times in campaigns led by Roman emperors Carus in 283 AD and Galerius (with Diocletian holding his hand) in 298 AD. The latter was the most decisive Roman victory against the Sassanids, enduring for decades until hostilities resumed in the Perso-Roman Wars of 337-361 AD under Roman emperor Constantius III and the ill-fated expedition by Roman emperor Julian.

Surprisingly, the Sassanids mellowed in the fifth century, remaining mostly peaceful with the Roman Empire while the latter’s western half fell to barbarian invasions. In part that was due to the Sassanids facing off their own barbarian threats, but it was instrumental in the survival of the eastern Roman Empire. Which brings me to…

Fourth, there was the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire against the Sassanids or Sasanians. While the Persians were only peer state the Romans had as adversary, the classical empire had the advantage in population and resources, albeit that advantage was diluted by more far-flung commitments. After the fall of the western empire, the eastern empire and the Sassanids were much more closely matched.

Not surprisingly then, this saw the most dramatic and mobile phase of the Roman-Persian Wars from the preceding centuries of effective stalemate – with the Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602-628. First the Sassanids almost decisively defeated and conquered the eastern empire, even besieging Constantinople, but were then decisively defeated in turn by a near miraculous eastern Roman recovery under emperor Heraclius – albeit the eastern Roman empire was too weakened to exploit its victory other than regaining its lost territory and effectively restoring the status quo between them.

The ultimate futility of the Roman-Persian Wars came in their aftermath with the event that decisively ended them altogether – the Arab conquests, achieved in large part from both empires being so weakened fighting each other that they were unable to resist their new adversary, with one being completely conquered and the other barely surviving defeat as well as the loss of much of its former territory.

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)