Cover photo: Painting of Odysseusart for DeviantArt .

“..Constantine, having understood the movement of those who fight against God in Constantinople, he constructed large, well-armored warships and siphon-bearing dromons, and he ordered them to be stationed in the Proclian Harbor of Caesar.. “

With these words, the descriptive Theophanes the Confessor provides an account of the preparation, construction, and equipment of the Byzantine fleet by Emperor Constantine IV in response to the Arab threat. This fleet played a crucial role in the first major Arab siege of Constantinople (674-678).

Throughout the preceding decade, the Arabs had persistently conducted raids and conquests in the Aegean (Rhodes) and the Anatolian coasts from Cilicia and Lycia (Tarsus) to Ionia (Smyrna) and up to Troas and Phrygia (Cyzicus). Establishing their base at the peninsula of Cyzicus on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, they had a relatively loose but highly dangerous blockade of Constantinople. The plan was to secure strong points and bases along the coast and, subsequently, using Cyzicus as a base, isolate the queen of cities by land and sea and cut it off from its rural hinterland.

After several indecisive battles on Thrace and Anatolian land and at sea, in the autumn of 677 or early 678, Constantine IV decided to confront the Arab besiegers in a decisive battle. His reinforced fleet, trained in the gymnasia and equipped with Greek fire, set ablaze the Arab fleet, or as the chronicler Theophanes vividly states, “He set fire to the Arab ships and burned them unanimously.” It is possible that the death of the Arab naval commander Yazid ibn Sakhr, reported by Arab chroniclers for the year 677/678, is related to the great defeat, which ended in a total rout after a storm drowned the remnants of the “divine-submerged” Arab fleet in the Gulf of Pamphylia.

Source:

“Chronographia,” Theophanes the Confessor.