The Arabs Sack Rome // Early Medieval Italy (846)

In the year 846, black sails came gliding up the river Tiber. For months, these ferocious sea pirates had raided up and down the Italian coastline, looting and plundering everything they found. And now, after sacking the Italian seaport of Ostia, they had come in search of a far greater prize. Their next destination lay much further inland. Professional soldiers, bloodied from a lifetime on the high seas. The raiders had been working on knowledge gleaned over the course of several decades. Information that suggested the existence of undefended riches there for the taking, further inland along the Tiber. There was a great city. Once, long ago, it had been the centre of the world. The beating heart of an empire that had stretched from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. But that was in ages past. Now, meagre communities inhabited the mighty ruins, eking out an existence within the colossal edifices of centuries gone by. Acting as custodians and guardians over the vast multitudes of riches and ruins to be found there. All in all, the population of the great city of Rome likely stood at around 30,000. Still populous for Western Europe, yet a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of citizens and slaves who had once populated the city in ages gone by. The situation in the rest of the peninsula wasn't much better. To the south, a scattering of Eastern Roman holdouts, leftovers from the days of Justinian, along with a few independent city-states, still clung on. Though, for the most part, Lombard noblemen held sway. Latin-speaking descendants of Germanic invaders. To the north, the Franks threw their weight around. Another faction descended from Germanic invaders, though this one a superpower compared to the Lombards of Southern Italy. During the 8th century, both of these peoples had been powerful. Though now, both found themselves embroiled in brutal civil wars. Made so much worse for the Franks by Viking invasions from the north. Yet, it wasn't the Norsemen who threatened Rome in 846. In that year, a new fleet arrived in the Tiber from the crystal waters of the Mediterranean. Attracted, in part, by the confusion and chaos ushered in by the Lombard civil war. To the horror of those present, the Arabs had arrived. According to the contemporary papal records, this was no mere raid. Loaded onto 73 ships, along with 500 horses, came 11,000 sea pirates, hungry for plunder and slaves. According to the Neapolitan sources, the pirates came from the recently conquered island of Sicily, sailing north from the metropolis of Palermo, directly to the great city itself. Others claim that they hailed from Northern Africa, or even Andalusia in modern-day Spain. Ultimately, for the Christian writers of the time, it didn't matter where they came from. If the contemporary sources are to be believed, this was one of the largest forces yet seen in the area. And most importantly, it represented an existential thunderbolt to the very heart of Western Christendom. Guys, I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you. As many of you know, I'm now able to do this full-time. This is a dream come true for me, and I can't thank you enough. Some of you may know that I actually run two other channels as well as this one, both of which I've recruited my brother to help out with narration and editing. The first one, Voices of the Past, is essentially an extension of History Time. We recreate primary sources from history, word for word, in a similar style to this channel. The third one is dedicated to my other great passion, science fiction and fantasy. So far, we've made audiobooks, and over the coming months, we're going to be delving into lore from your favourite sci-fi and fantasy universes. If Lord of the Rings means anything to you, go and subscribe now. You can check out both of the channels in the description below. Now, back to the video. By the mid-ninth century, the once mighty city of Rome stood on the verge of oblivion. Largely depopulated and dilapidated as the result of a waning in influence over the years, and most recently, suffering from the hemorrhaging of Carolingian power that had followed the death of the great king Charlemagne, the city was by now a shadow of its former self. Hundreds of years after its repeated sacking by waves of Germanic invaders such as the Visigoths and the Vandals, in the eyes of many contemporary Christians, the great city faced a very real risk of being stamped out of existence entirely. Though Rome itself was a huge, sprawling mass of ruins, the last 50 years or so of investment by the Carolingian Franks had left it with a slew of new and rich churches, all filled with untold treasures, relics and gifts. A number of these, such as St. Peter's and the basilicas dedicated to St. Paul and St. Lawrence, stood outside the colossal Aurelian Walls. It was likely these sites that had first attracted the Arabs. The timing of their raid on Rome had been impeccable. Just two years earlier in 844, a significant Frankish force, led by Charlemagne's grandson Lothair, had been in Rome for the coronation of his son Louis as the new king of Italy. The event had been a grand display of Carolingian power. Though, in just two years since that time, which saw the Viking sack of Paris, along with a complete breakdown of relations between the various descendants of Charlemagne, the power of the Franks was shown to be little more than smoke and mirrors. And now, by 846, the Frankish warriors were long gone, having travelled back north to protect their own lands. To the south, the vicious war between Salerno and Benevento raged on, with both Rodelius of Benevento and Sicanulf of Salerno now utilising Arab mercenaries as their main fighting forces. Rome was wide open for those ambitious enough to attempt an attack. It wasn't long before that day came. Where exactly they originated from, we can't be sure, though not for a lack of options. For hundreds of years, Muslim pirates had spilled out into the Mediterranean in search of plunder and slaves, and by the 9th century, raids had escalated into full-scale invasion. One by one, the various islands of the Mediterranean had fallen to the Islamic powers, each becoming a stepping stone for further conquests. Just like the Scandinavian pirates of Northern Europe, long before they exploded out of Arabia, nomadic raiding had been a cultural mainstay of the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. Camel raiding was an important means to gain status, and often a genuine necessity for desert living. Like Scandinavians, Bedouins had long raided the sedentary peoples who lived on the fringes of their lands, in order to gain plunder and economic wealth. Now by the 9th century, these campaigns into the Mediterranean, not too dissimilar to the old patterns of the desert, had escalated massively to propel the Arabs onto the world sea. In Arabic poetry, camels had long been known as the ships of the desert, and now their ships had become camels of the sea. In 812, two years before the death of Charlemagne, the island of Ischia, just off the shore of the independent city-state of Naples, was sacked by Muslim raiders. That same year, the island of Sicily, a Roman holding for close to a thousand years, saw its first groups of Muslim conquerors. In 824, the island of Crete, another Eastern Roman province, was conquered, perhaps by a fleet of Andalusian exiles from the Iberian Peninsula. By 827, North African Muslims, under the Aghlabid dynasty, began their coordinated conquest of the island of Sicily. Four years of vicious fighting later, though Roman holdouts remained, they had achieved a grip on the island by capturing the city of Palermo, again aided by a force of Andalusians from Iberia. Yet even so, due to the fierce resistance of the entrenched Roman population, the difficult mountainous terrain, and the sheer amount of fortified cities and towns, capturing the entire island was not an easy task. In fact, the struggle for Sicily continued until 902, when the Aghlabids finally succeeded in driving out the last Byzantine strongholds. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the conquest of Sicily took at least 75 years to complete, it did not hinder further Islamic attacks on the Italian mainland. The city of Brindisi was the to fall prey to Muslim pirates, being sacked in 838. Next came an attack on Bari in 840, one of the most important towns of the eastern coast. Yet despite this seemingly endless encroachment from the south, there were many Italian powers who saw opportunity in the chaos. As early as 835, the rich yet fragile city-state of Naples hired Muslim mercenaries to fight for them. By the end of the decade, both Salerno and Benevento, the two foremost Lombard powers, had done the same, with devastating consequences. By 842, a force of Muslim pirates attempted to city of Ponza, but were beaten back by the combined forces of Naples and Gaeta. In the same year however, the Aghlabids finally succeeded in taking the city of Messina in Sicily, thus completing the conquest of most of the island. We can therefore point to several potential origins for the marauders of Rome. The contemporary papal chronicle, and the chronicle of Monte Cassino, argue that they came directly from Africa, likely modern day Tunisia. The Liber Pontificalis however, has them raiding Corsica before attacking the great city, suggesting a potential Andalusian origin. We know that from the early 9th century, Corsica played an important role in the struggle of the Andalusians to control the Tyrrhenian Sea, being used as a launching pad for attacks against Liguria and Tuscany on the Italian mainland. The Annals of Folda add further evidence to this argument, claiming that the looters were Maori, or Moors, a term often used to describe Iberian Muslims. Nevertheless, a number of modern scholars tend to suggest that the raiders may in fact have been outcasts from the other Muslim states of the time, operating outside the remit of the established powers, and thus could very well have hailed from all over the Mediterranean. Regardless of where they had originated, by the late summer of 846, it was clear that they had one destination in mind. The Pope at the time, Sergius II, essentially a client to the Frankish Kings, though still the spiritual leader of Western Christendom, apparently failed to heed the warning signs of steadily encroaching raids, making little effort to oppose the invaders. The Liber Pontificalis stresses that it was God who sent the avenging pagans, to wipe corruption from the holy city. When news reached the Emperor Lothair to the north, he was genuinely horrified, immediately arranging for a force to go south, including his son Louis. Though this was too little, too late. Faced with their own marauding bands of pirates infesting the river systems of the north, they could spare little aid to Rome. For better, or for worse, the Pope was on his own. In late summer, after the sack of Ostia, the raiders sailed on unopposed into the Tiber. Soon enough, they arrived at the outskirts of the city, terrified citizens fleeing before them into the relative safety of the Aurelian Walls. Built more than five centuries earlier by the Emperor Aurelian, between 271 and 275, and added to by Maxentius at the beginning of the 4th century, the Germanic Generalissimo Stilicho between 401 and 403, and by Justinian's general Belisarius in 536. After all these renovations, the walls stood at around 12m high and were 19km long. They had 381 towers and a moat. However, there were barely enough men in the city to man the battlements, let alone sally forth to drive away the invaders. Yet, nonetheless, by all accounts, small groups of Roman defenders did oppose the attackers, backed up by visiting Lombards, Franks, Saxons and Frisians, many of whom weren't warriors at all, but young noblemen training for scholarly careers in the city. In desperation, this makeshift force of Franks, Saxons and Frisians, eager to prove their worth, were recruited from schools around the city and dispatched alongside a makeshift militia to harass the invaders. They encountered little resistance for several days, the Arabs remaining hidden, before finally walking straight into a trap. The defence force was massacred, the survivors fleeing back to the safety of the Aurelian Walls. For days to come, in clear view of horrified city watchmen, many of them visitors press ganged into service, the Arabs set about systematically looting and plundering everything outside the walls. Several contemporary or near-contemporary accounts exist of the sack, and though slightly conflicting at times, they paint a vivid picture of the horror felt by the residents of the city. This was the first time Rome had been sacked since the days of the Goths and the Vandals, and even then they left the holy sites alone, themselves being Christians. This time, no such considerations were made. One of the best accounts of the sack, the Liber Pontificalis, apparently penned by a witness emphasised the destruction of several richly endowed churches outside the city walls. The Frankish Annals of Saint-Bertin had yet more literary flair by emphasising the spilling of blood and the desecration of the holy altar of St Peter's Church. The basilicas of Old St Peter's and St Paul's outside the walls were sacked, their relics loaded up onto the waiting ships of the Arabs. There however, according to the Christian writers, they came up against their first serious issue since arriving in the area. Looming over them stood the mighty Aurelian Walls. In reality however, the attack was probably never meant to breach the city walls, the pickings outside being more than enough to justify an attack. Thus, after sacking the churches entirely successfully, the Arabs pulled out. They'd helped themselves to vast amounts of wealth and loot, and they could always come back. Heading south along the Appian Way, a highway for conquerors from the days of Spartacus, all the way up to Napoleon, laden down with plunder, according to some sources, the Carolingian force sent south by Lothair finally caught up with them. Though, they suffered the same fate as the previous army. Being driven off after a brutal battle. In the south, near the town of Gaeta, a combined Lombard army was thrown together. Though, when it became apparent that their own cities were not at risk, the attackers being preoccupied with getting away with their loot, the attack was called off. Some sources stress that a divine retribution was dealt out to the attackers as they plied out into the sea, a storm smashing many of their ships to pieces. Though, this may well have been simple wishful thinking. In all likelihood, though nowhere near as devastating as the earlier sacks of Rome, the raid had been incredibly successful. The aggressors never managed to breach the inner sanctum of the city, though that had probably never been their intention. The attack on Rome may have always been intended to be more of a scouting raid than a full-scale invasion. An expeditionary probe intended to test the waters before a larger attack to follow. A similar strategy to ones undertaken on so many shorelines throughout the Mediterranean over the previous two centuries, and one that would continue for another two centuries to come. Soon enough, word spread amongst the various groups of Arabic pirates and mercenaries at large in the south of Italy. The north was ripe for the picking too. As word spread throughout the Christian world of the raid, the citizens of Rome knew that the Arabs would be back, potentially in larger numbers than before. In response, they inaugurated a new Pope, without even waiting for imperial consent from the north. This new Pope was younger, more energetic, and most importantly, he was willing to do whatever it took to defeat the invading attackers from the south. His name was Leo IV. A Roman by birth, and a high-ranking church figure, Leo had been an obvious choice for the influential position. Immediately upon his inauguration, he set about repairing churches that had been damaged, in order to raise the morale of the city. But, most importantly, he instigated the creation of a vast new defensive wall on the right bank of the Tiber, that encircled the church of Saint Peter, and would provide a safe haven for the inhabitants of the city on the occasion of another attack. This defensive structure would eventually become known as the Leonine Wall. Leo also put the existing walls of the city into a thorough state of repair, entirely rebuilding 15 of the great towers encircling the once mighty metropolis. He was also the first to enclose the Vatican hill with fortifications. All this he did with money skillfully negotiated from Louis II. Meanwhile, the vicious civil war between Salerno and Benevento raged on. By 847, neither prince was in a position to stop the capture of Bari by Rodelius' former mercenaries. Thus, under Sordan, the self-proclaimed Sultan of Bari, the east coast of southern Italy became the centre of a short-lived Islamic emirate. Sordan's pirates held onto the city for decades to come, until they were finally dislodged at great effort by Louis in 871. Nevertheless, in Rome, Pope Leo spent much of his time tirelessly urging the various Italian princes and dukes into coming together to form a common front against the Arabs. In 849, his worst fears were confirmed, and his precautions justified when yet another invasion fleet was spotted outside the ancient seaports at the mouth of the Tiber. Whether it was the same fleet, we can't be sure, though this time the city was ready. Leo's tireless stream of diplomatic overtures had finally paid off when he successfully summoned together the combined navies of the Italian maritime cities to form into a defensive pact. Led by Caesar, the son of the Duke of Naples, Papal vessels sailed alongside ships from Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi. Interestingly, though the Papal coalition now sailed to make war against the invading Arabic navy in the his father had a long history of collusion with the Arabs against their regional rivals. Perhaps this force was seen as different to ones that had come before, finally warranting a common Christian front against the Muslims. Apparently aided again by a fierce storm that fortuitously helped the Italian armada, in the spring of 849 a great sea battle was fought just outside of Ostia. The victory won there by the Italian navy is often considered one of the most famous and important in the entire history of the papacy. It may have prevented another sack or even outright conquest of Rome by the Aghlabids of Sicily. The importance of this battle cannot be understated. Though Arabic pirates would continue to threaten Italy well into the 11th century, the city of Rome would never again be attacked. Leo remained Pope for another six years after the battle of Ostia, remaining vigilant all the while as he carefully added to the defences of the great city year after year, just in case the Arabs again tried their luck. Fleets of Islamic pirates continued to terrorise the region from bases on both the west and eastern coasts, yet their hold on the areas they conquered remained fragile, and finally by 915 they were dislodged by a new international alliance, this one brokered in part by a new power, a sleeping giant that soon enough would return to the peninsula in force to restate their ancient claims of sovereignty. To the east in Constantinople a new dynasty was arising, one that would see a remarkable reconquest of formerly Roman-held lands from Sicily to Palestine. The Macedonian dynasty had arisen, and soon Roman armies would return in force to Italy for the first time since the days of Justinian, ushering in a new age.