The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: States, Resources and Armies.

• Author: Cameron, Averil

This book is a collection of twelve papers presented at the third workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam on the theme, "States, Resources and Armies." The main aim of the papers is to explore the systems involved as well as the structure and army resources in the Byzantine, Sassanian and early Islamic states.

The first paper, that of John Haldon, discusses the distribution of resources in the pre-industrial states, pointing to the importance of analyzing the ways in which armies are organized, funded, and controlled, thus offering the best glimpse of the functioning state. Haldon also stresses the significance of a high degree of central authority if a pre-industrial state is to survive over the long term, and the necessity of persuading the elites of the importance of a strong central government. The rest of the papers in this volume can be grouped into four categories.

The first group includes those that deal mainly with the system of financing the army in the late Roman state. Jean Michel Carrie studies the continuities and breaks in the financing of late Roman armies through an investigation of fiscality, land, and recruitment in Egypt from the fourth to the seventh century. While a significant part of Carrie's paper deals with the fourth century, Michael Whitby's concentrates on the sixth and early seventh centuries and argues that the Roman army remained powerful and controlled by the imperial center throughout this period. Whitby attributes the seventh-century late Roman defeats to civil wars, the disruption of imperial control and finances, as well as challenges of an "unfamiliar enemy," rather than being the results of military weakness and poor organization. And while Whitby argues for continuity, Benjamin Isaac explains the same late Roman defeats as the product of a long-term gradual decline of the Roman army pointing to the reduced number of troops in the peace-time garrison of Palestine on the eve of the Islamic conquests. The ultimate cause for defeat, in his view, is to be blamed on the central authorities, who were unable to respond to the new threats.

The second category focuses on the Sassanian Empire. In a comparative approach to the Sassanian and late Roman empires in the fifth and sixth centuries, James Howard-Johnston outlines the enduring structural features of the Sassanian Empire. He points to the stronger Sassanian defenses and to a more effective administrative apparatus capable of managing the necessary...