Has anyone read/got this paper by Theotokis (War in History November 2010 17: 381-402) and if so are there any details of the make up, troop types and size of the Zirid/Kalbite army at Cerami 1063 and Misilmari 1068?
No, but one could perhaps ask the author to upload it here (http://www.academia.edu/2401443/_The_Norman_invasion_of_Sicily_1061-1072_Numbers_and_Military_Tactics_War_in_History_17_2010_pp._381-402).
Or one could ask the author if he would be willing to send a copy. His email address is given on this page (http://wih.sagepub.com/content/17/4/381).
Thanks Patrick
I emailed him earlier today via academia eu
let us know if you get a copy ;)
Jim
I got a look at a copy
It is taken from his thesis I think with a reformat
Stick this in your computer
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1884/
And the majority of the info is in the chapter about Italy and Sicily
It does not define Muslim troop types
It does seem very Norman vs Byzantine, presumably reflecting the author's interests.
I wonder if it would be worth asking him - after thanking him for such an interesting paper, of course - whether he knows anyone who does detail the Muslim armies.
Malaterra is the sole source on Misilmari (I think).
His 'De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius' is available, in part, online in translation.
It does not detail the Muslim troops either, bar telling us there were a lot more of them than the Normans and that their vanguard was comprised of cavalry (that could fight dismounted; at least they had done at Cerami in order to engage in seige work).
I have also been looking for any detail on the 1067 battle between the two Muslim factions (under Ayoub and Ibn Hawwas respectively) but have found nothing; this would no doubt shed a little light.
We do know the Muslim armies contained Sicilian urban and presumably rural militias and Zirid Berber troops (who had been knocking lumps out of each other only a year before); it's not improbable that the Sicilian Muslims and their supporters provided some heavy mounted units to accompany the militia foot troops and, looking at Zirid armies, the same heavy mounted and foot combination applied but with the addition of more light cavalry and light infantry, but this is just a guess.
There is this paper
https://www.academia.edu/2604710/_Geoffrey_Malaterra_as_a_military_historian_for_the_Norman_expansion_in_Italy_and_Sicily_strengths_and_weaknesses_in_his_narrative_Mediterranean_Chronicle_2_2012_pp._105-115
by Theotokis which i'm currently reading.
I dont think it has a lot of detail (from memory) about specific troop/army composition and sorry for a slight digression on the thread but a damn fine read in and around the subject matter is The Kingdom in The Sun by John Julius Norwich. Very well written and absorbing (as his Byzantium 'series') - for me history at its best
Yes Holly, Malaterra is sparse, in fact Theotokis questions his expertise on military matters in the paper I linked to and suggests he should be considered a secondary source for battles on the mainland and in Sicily.
Thanks Rodge, I will have a shufties at the links in this thread as this has fired up my enthusiasm for the period somewhat :)
This suggests we may have to arrive at the content of Sicilian Muslim armies by logical extrapolation. Assuming they fielded the local militia, which probably contributed more to the eventual casualty figures than to the fighting, we might gain some idea of the available troops by looking at the Muslim contingents Sicilian Hohenstaufen armies fielded, horse and foot archers coming to mind. A core of lance-armed mounted Muslim enthusiasts seems mandated, and there are of course the Berbers.
One might also look at Muslim armies in Spain for possible parallels and a basic organisational template.
In any event I think Rodge's 'guesses' are along the right lines.
Numbers are another matter: Diodorus XI.21.1 credits Gelo of Syracuse with 5,000 cavalry in 480 BC and Thucydides VI.67 has the Syracusans, relying on their own resources (1,200) and those of Gela (200), field 1,400 cavalry plus 20 from Camarina. If we assume that Gelo's muster was from the whole island under Greek rule, we get a possible benchmark for the number of Sicilian cavalry likely to be supported on an enduring basis and hence present at a major battle. Syracuse's later 1,200 horse (with Gela's 200 as a contribution from a smaller town/city - Camarina's was a token force as they preferred Athens) is perhaps a benchmark for a smaller, regional army.
One would add to this total such Berbers and other overseas interlopers and mercenaries as might be considered suitable, and add helpings of foot archers and local militia to taste.
Thanks Patrick, an ingenious bit of logic.
Just looked at the Osprey 'Norman Stone Castles (2): Europe 950-1204' on Googlebooks. Interestingly it says (post the conquest of Sicily by the Normans) that:
'In Sicily the existing Muslim iqta was a form of fief that probably provided the model for smaller Sicilian feudal fees. In western Sicily the jund system of recruiting regional militias were continued under the Norman conquerors.....In Sicily a landed Muslim aristocracy survived until the 13th century, holding on to a number of smaller castles and provided both horse and foot throughout the period'.
No footnote but a bit of support for the idea of Sicilian Kalbid local cavalry, possibly of noble flavour.
The 5000 cavalry figure could be very much a maximum if Gelon hired Mercenary cavalry as well as Mercenary infantry. His horsemen need not necessarily all have been from the Island
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on January 17, 2016, 12:50:03 PM
The 5000 cavalry figure could be very much a maximum if Gelon hired Mercenary cavalry as well as Mercenary infantry. His horsemen need not necessarily all have been from the Island
I think they were all Greeks from Sicily (not necessarily Syracuse), because any other mercenaries available would have been snapped up by the Carthaginians and any other Greeks available would have been tied down defending their homes against Xerxes. In theory, non-involved states such as Argos could have provided troops, but this was a century before the great Greek mercenary era and as of 480 BC citizens tended to stay with their home city and do what it did.
So 5,000 is probably a good ceiling for home-grown Sicilian cavalry. One can of course water it down to taste if one assumes the fertility of the land or its availability for use had changed significantly during the interim.
Quote from: rodge on January 17, 2016, 12:16:39 PM
Just looked at the Osprey 'Norman Stone Castles (2): Europe 950-1204' on Googlebooks. Interestingly it says (post the conquest of Sicily by the Normans) that:
'In Sicily the existing Muslim iqta was a form of fief that probably provided the model for smaller Sicilian feudal fees. In western Sicily the jund system of recruiting regional militias were continued under the Norman conquerors.....In Sicily a landed Muslim aristocracy survived until the 13th century, holding on to a number of smaller castles and provided both horse and foot throughout the period'.
No footnote but a bit of support for the idea of Sicilian Kalbid local cavalry, possibly of noble flavour.
A good bit of support, indeed. The words 'landed' and 'aristocracy' together with 'holding ... castles' and 'provided ... horse' do rather suggest this. Backtracking from this point indicates these gentry, or rather their forefathers, would have been around during the period in question as they are hardly likely to have immigrated following the Norman conquest.
It looks like a good start. :)
Had a quick look last night at Aziz Ahmad, A History of Islamic Sicily (Edinburgh UP 1986), which I think is all I have on the area, and it contains nothing helpful.
For troop types, there are some depictions of earlier Sicilian Muslim troops in the Madrid Skylitzes - see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Sicily#/media/File:MadridSkylitzesFol100vDetail.jpg
http://www.warfare.altervista.org/12/Scylitzes-f214.htm
The MS is possibly made in Byzantine Italy, so the Muslim figures may have some basis in local knowledge. Overwhelmingly unarmoured infantry with shortish spears.
There is a mailed spearman in a hunting scene from Sicily at http://www.warfare.altervista.org/11/Fatimid_Pergamon_Ivory_casket-large.htm and other figures who might be Sicilian Muslim troops in art of the Norman period: see Ian Heath's version at http://www.warfare.altervista.org/WRG/Feudal-97-101-Sicilian_Saracens.htm. The article at http://deremilitari.org/2013/07/saracen-archers-in-southern-italy/ suggests that Guiscard was using Sicilian archers as early as 1076, so they were presumably readily available even though the art concentrates on spearmen.
But all this will help with tactics only as a rough guide to what troops might be available, and not at all with numbers.
Thanks Duncan
Roy pointed me at some of those images but I missed a couple that you put up.
I found the article on Sicilian Archers on De Re Militari yesterday, I believe there was a debate about whether the mounted archers used horses to move around on but dismounted to fight or if they were horse archers?
Numbers are quoted by Malaterra and that link to the Theotokis paper on Malaterra goes some way (but not far enough) to deciphering some of the claims.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 17, 2016, 11:01:00 PM
Quote from: Jim Webster on January 17, 2016, 12:50:03 PM
The 5000 cavalry figure could be very much a maximum if Gelon hired Mercenary cavalry as well as Mercenary infantry. His horsemen need not necessarily all have been from the Island
I think they were all Greeks from Sicily (not necessarily Syracuse), because any other mercenaries available would have been snapped up by the Carthaginians
Just reading round the subject apparently Gelon hired a lot of Sicels
Trying to remember when the earliest use of Etruscans and Italians (not Italiots) was by Greek Tyrants
Sicels would at least have grown up among and be living off the resources of Sicily and so should not unduly affect our rule-of-thumb figure.
Wikipedia mentions the following about Gelo's army, alas without references:
"Under Gelo's rule, Syracuse soon became prosperous. Along with grand building program in Syracuse, Gelo sought also to create a powerful mercenary army. Most of the recruits for his army came from the native Sicel tribes. However, some were recruited from the Greek mainland, men who had most likely fought with Gelo at some point in the past, and their total number was said to be around 10,000. All of these men were granted citizenship of Syracuse."
This was before the 480 BC campaign, and being Syracusan citizens they presumably settled there and lived off Syracuse's resources.
Gelo also fielded 50,000 infantry against the Carthaginians (in addition to his 5,000 cavalry) and had earlier promised to take 28,000 troops (not differentiated between infantry and cavalry) and 200 triremes to Greece if given overall command of the Greek forces against Xerxes. This suggests that 27,000 of his 55,000 at Himera were allies, as opposed to men under his rule or direct influence, and might conceivably give us an idea for the likely size of a Sicilian Muslim army (27,000-28,000?) in later times.
The Carthaginians at Himera, having lost their own mounted forces to a storm en route, were expecting cavalry from their Greek allies: Gelo's cavalry got into the Carthaginian camp through some of them pretending to be allies from Selinus, so it looks as if there were more cavalry existing in Sicily at the time than just the 5,000 under Gelo. 5,000 thus looks more like a minimum for the island rather than an upper limit, at least for this period.
Gelo's successor, Hiero I, fought the Etruscans (defeating them at Cumae in 474 BC) so I suspect the first Syracusan tyrant to hire Etruscans and Italians in any numbers may have been the elder or younger Dionysius, but stand to be corrected on this point.