What were the greatest battles of the Byzantine Empire?
In our ranking the greatest battle of the Byzantine Empire is the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which ended the empire itself. Manzikert (1071) is second and the crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204 third, followed by Yarmouk (636) and Kleidion (1014). The fifteen run from Ad Decimum in 533 to 1453, victories and defeats alike.1
For more than a thousand years the Eastern Roman Empire, which historians call Byzantine, fought on every frontier, and its capital was besieged again and again. This guide ranks its fifteen greatest battles and sieges between the division of the empire in 395 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the victories that saved it and the disasters that cut it down. The sieges of the capital count in full, because the empire lived or died with Constantinople. The list is ranked by a score, not by date, and how we chose and ranked them is explained right after the list, together with the famous battles that just missed it.2
1 Fall of Constantinople, 1453
- Where
- Constantinople (today Istanbul), capital of the empire
- War
- Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire
- Besiegers
- Sultan Mehmed II: 60,000 to 80,000 by modern estimates; 150,000 to 200,000 in older accounts
- Defenders
- Emperor Constantine XI: 4,773 Greeks and about 200 foreigners by Sphrantzes’ count, about 7,000 men in other counts
- Outcome
- Stormed on 29 May 1453; the empire ended
By 1453 the empire that had once ruled the eastern Mediterranean was little more than one city behind the Theodosian land walls, a triple line of fortifications some 6.5 kilometers long. Sultan Mehmed II opened the attack on 6 April. Modern historians put his army at 60,000 to 80,000; the Foundation of the Hellenic World gives about 150,000, and the eyewitness George Sphrantzes wrote 200,000. Sphrantzes also counted the defenders: 4,773 Greeks and about 200 foreigners. Other accounts reach about 7,000 men with some 2,000 foreigners, reinforced by 700 Genoese under Giovanni Giustiniani. Every one of these numbers is disputed.3
Mehmed’s answer to the walls was gunpowder. The Hungarian engineer Urban had offered his cannon to Constantine XI, who could not meet his price; the sultan offered four times as much. About 70 Ottoman ships were hauled overland on ox-drawn carts and launched into the Golden Horn. At dawn on 29 May, after weeks of bombardment, Mehmed attacked; Janissaries got onto the land walls through the small Kerkoporta gate, which someone had left open, and Constantine XI was killed in the fighting, most likely near the Gate of St Romanos. The city was plundered for three days and three nights, and as one Byzantine wrote, everything was decided by the cannon. Turkey still marks 29 May as the anniversary of the conquest and remembers the sultan as Fatih, the Conqueror.4
Why it ranks here: No. 1 because it is the only battle here with full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and memory: it ended the empire itself. Only certainty stops at 4, since the size of Mehmed’s army rests on modern estimates set against the chroniclers’ far higher figures.
2 Manzikert, 1071
- Where
- Near the fortress of Manzikert in Byzantine Armenia, now eastern Turkey
- War
- Byzantine-Seljuk wars
- Sides
- Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes vs Sultan Alp Arslan of the Seljuk Turks
- Strength
- No reliable figures survive for either side (Britannica); part of the Byzantine army withdrew before the battle and never fought
- Result
- Seljuk victory; the emperor captured and freed about a week later
In 1071 Romanos IV Diogenes marched east with a large army of conscripts and mercenaries to win back the frontier fortresses the Turks had taken. No reliable figures survive for either army, Britannica notes, though part of the Byzantine force never fought: Paul Markham, writing for De Re Militari, reckons that some 20,000 men marched off under Tarchaneiotes before the battle.5
In late August the horse archers of Sultan Alp Arslan gave way before the Byzantine advance and shot into its flanks. When Romanos turned back toward camp, the reserve under his rival Andronikos Doukas withdrew from the field instead of coming to his aid; the lines broke, and Romanos, wounded, was taken prisoner. Myth vs fact: the army was not wiped out. Markham puts Byzantine losses at no more than about 8,000, and most units were fighting elsewhere within a few months. Romanos spent about a week in the sultan’s camp and was released on the promise of a ransom. The real disaster came afterward. Doukas led a coup, Romanos was deposed and blinded, and in the civil wars that followed the Turks advanced into the power vacuum in Anatolia.6
Why it ranks here: The best-known Byzantine field battle, with full marks for recognition and consequence, because the civil wars it set off opened Anatolia to the Turks. The emperor was free within a week and most of his army escaped, so decisiveness is 4; with memory and certainty also at 4 it ties the sack of 1204 on points and goes ahead on recognition.
3 Sack of Constantinople, 1204
- Where
- Constantinople
- War
- Fourth Crusade
- Besiegers
- Crusaders and Venetians: about 4,500 knights, up to 14,000 infantry and 20,000 to 30,000 Venetians on one estimate
- Defenders
- Emperor Alexios V Doukas; numbers unknown
- Outcome
- Stormed on 12 April 1204; three days of plunder; Latin rule until 1261
The Fourth Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III in 1202, was meant for the Holy Land. The crusaders could not pay the 85,000 silver marks Venice asked for its fleet, so they paid in kind: in November 1202 they sacked the Christian city of Zara for the Venetians, and the pope excommunicated them. The crusaders then reached Constantinople on 24 June 1203 to put the prince Alexios IV on the throne, but he could not pay what he had promised and was overthrown by Alexios V Doukas. World History Encyclopedia gives the crusading army as about 4,500 knights with their squires, up to 14,000 infantry and 20,000 to 30,000 Venetians.7
On 12 April 1204 Venetian ships rammed the harbor walls while the Franks battered down a gate, and the city was taken by storm. Three days of plunder followed. Niketas Choniates, a Byzantine eyewitness, wrote of the body and blood of Christ spilled on the ground and of a harlot singing and dancing on the patriarch’s seat in Hagia Sophia. Baldwin of Flanders was crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia, and the Greek empire lived on in exile at Nicaea until its troops retook the city in 1261. In 2001 Pope John Paul II spoke in Athens of “the disastrous sack” and of the “deep regret” Catholics feel that the attackers were Latin Christians.8
Why it ranks here: Decisiveness and consequence are 5, because it split the empire into Latin and Greek states for 57 years (1204 to 1261, by our count), and eyewitnesses on both sides, Choniates, Villehardouin and Robert de Clari, make certainty 5. It is less widely known than Manzikert, so it loses their tie on recognition.9
4 Yarmouk, 636
- Where
- Yarmouk River valley, on today’s border of Syria and Jordan
- War
- Arab conquest of Byzantine Syria
- Sides
- Rashidun Caliphate (Khalid ibn al-Walid, Abu Ubayda) vs the Byzantine Empire (Vahan)
- Strength
- 20,000 to 25,000 Arabs vs 15,000 to 100,000 Byzantines by modern estimates (disputed)
- Result
- Byzantine field army destroyed; Syria lost for good
Within a few years of Muhammad’s death in 632 the armies of the new caliphate had taken Damascus and much of Syria. Heraclius gathered a large army at Antioch, of Greeks, Armenians, Slavs and Christian Arabs, under the Armenian general Vahan, to drive them out. The Muslim commanders fell back to the Yarmouk River under Khalid ibn al-Walid.10
The fighting is traditionally said to have lasted six days, from 15 to 20 August 636. The Byzantines twice pushed the Arab flanks back to their camps, where, the chronicles say, the women shamed the men back into battle. Before the last day Khalid sent horsemen to seize the only bridge over the Wadi Ruqqad; then his cavalry turned the Byzantine left, and the trapped army was cut down, drowned in the river or killed falling from the ravines.11
How big the armies were nobody knows. Fred Donner put the Byzantines at about 100,000, Walter Kaegi at 15,000 to 20,000, and World History Encyclopedia at around 40,000 against 20,000 to 25,000 Muslims. The Arab sources were written down from the late eighth century by chroniclers notorious, World History Encyclopedia notes, for inflating enemy numbers. The result is certain: Syria was lost for good, Jerusalem surrendered in 637 and Egypt soon followed.12
Why it ranks here: Decisiveness and consequence are 5, because it destroyed the field army in Syria, lost the province for good and opened the Levant to the Arab conquests; late Arab sources and modern estimates from about 15,000 to 100,000 Byzantines hold certainty to 3. It ties Kleidion on points with the same recognition and consequence, and ranks above it as the older battle.13
5 Kleidion, 1014
- Where
- A fortified pass in the Belasica mountains, near the village of Klyuch in today’s Bulgaria
- War
- Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria
- Sides
- Emperor Basil II vs Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria
- Strength
- No reliable figures; over 15,000 Bulgarians said to have been captured
- Result
- Byzantine victory; Bulgaria annexed by 1018
Basil II fought Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria for most of his reign, and his first campaign ended in defeat at the Gates of Trajan in 986. On 29 July 1014 the Bulgarian army was holding a fortified pass in the Belasica mountains, near today’s village of Klyuch, when Basil and his general Nikephoros Xiphias outmaneuvered it and took it from behind. World History Encyclopedia counts over 15,000 prisoners.14
John Skylitzes, writing around 1090, reports that “they say” the emperor blinded about 15,000 prisoners, leaving one eye to every hundredth man so he could lead the rest home, and that Samuel, seeing them, suffered a heart attack and died on 6 October. Myth vs fact: Georgios Theotokis calls the number certainly an exaggeration, and Paul Stephenson doubts it because the Bulgarians still raised large armies afterward; even the name Bulgar-Slayer appears only in the twelfth century. Kleidion did not end the war at once. It took four more years of campaigns and negotiations before Basil entered Serdica in 1018 and the Bulgarian lands became part of the empire. Later the battle found a second life: Basil became a symbol of the Greek national movement, and in the struggle over Macedonia the victory became a central point of Greek national history.15
Why it ranks here: Consequence is 5, because it led to the end of the First Bulgarian Empire, but Bulgaria fought on until 1018, so decisiveness is 4, and the famous blinding rests on Skylitzes, writing some 75 years later, so certainty is 3. It ties Yarmouk on points with the same recognition and consequence, and drops behind it as the younger battle.
6 Arab siege of Constantinople, 717 to 718
- Where
- Constantinople and the Bosporus
- War
- Arab-Byzantine wars
- Besiegers
- Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik: 1,800 ships according to Theophanes; about 80,000 men on land in modern reference works
- Defenders
- Emperor Leo III; numbers unknown
- Outcome
- Siege abandoned on 15 August 718; the Arab fleet lost
In 717 the caliph’s brother Maslama crossed into Thrace and on 15 August put Constantinople under siege, ringing the land wall with a ditch and a stone parapet. On 1 September the fleet arrived; Theophanes, writing about a century later, puts it at 1,800 ships. Theophanes gives no land army total; EBSCO’s 80,000 men, with as many again aboard ship, names no medieval source, and Byzantine World notes that historians treat the largest figures with skepticism.16
When the fleet moved up the Bosporus, the emperor Leo III sent fireships out against it, and Greek fire turned the leading ships into blazing wrecks. Then came one of the harshest winters in memory: snow lay on the ground for a hundred days, and the besiegers ate their horses and camels while disease spread through the camp. In spring two new fleets arrived from Egypt and Africa; their Egyptian crews deserted to the city and told Leo where the ships lay, and his fireships burned those too. Khan Tervel’s Bulgars struck the Arab army from the rear; Theophanes says they killed 22,000 men. Maslama was recalled on 15 August 718, and on the way home a storm destroyed the fleet; only five galleys are said to have come back.17
Why it ranks here: Leo III, Greek fire, a cruel winter and Bulgar help destroyed Maslama’s army and fleet and saved the capital, and with it the empire, so decisiveness and consequence are 5. The numbers, like Theophanes’ 1,800 ships, are chroniclers’ figures written down a century later, so certainty is 3, and the siege is known mainly to readers of Byzantine history, so recognition and memory are 3.18
7 Avar siege of Constantinople, 626
- Where
- Constantinople and the Bosporus
- War
- Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602 to 628
- Besiegers
- The Avar khagan with Slavs and Bulgars, 80,000 to 150,000 in different accounts; a Persian army under Shahrbaraz at Chalcedon
- Defenders
- About 12,000 men under the magister Bonus and Patriarch Sergius
- Outcome
- Siege abandoned in August 626
In 626, with Heraclius deep in Persian territory, his enemies struck at his capital. The Avar khagan, with Slavs and Bulgars, came up to the land walls, his vanguard arriving on 29 June, while a Persian army under Shahrbaraz camped across the Bosporus at Chalcedon. Heraclius sent back a third of his army but kept the bulk in Asia, and the city was left to the magister Bonus and Patriarch Sergius, who carried an icon of the Virgin along the walls. World History Encyclopedia gives 80,000 attackers, the Hellenic Army General Staff 150,000 Avars against 12,000 defenders.19
The attack failed on land and at sea. Bonus had fires lit to lure the Slavs in their dugout canoes into attacking too early, and Byzantine ships destroyed them, as they sank boats bringing Persians over from Chalcedon. Short of supplies, the khagan gave up in August and marched away, and Shahrbaraz left too. Orthodox tradition credits the Virgin with the rescue: the patriarch and the people sang the Akathist hymn in thanks at the Blachernae church, and the hymn, sung standing, is still chanted on the Saturday of the fifth week of Lent. The feast itself, Orthochristian notes, was set in the ninth century for every time the city was saved.20
Why it ranks here: Holding the capital while Heraclius was in Persia kept the empire alive for his victory at Nineveh, so decisiveness and consequence are 5, and the Akathist keeps it in Orthodox memory, so memory is 4. Outside that tradition it is little known, so recognition is 2, and its army sizes are chroniclers’ figures, so certainty is 3.
8 Nineveh, 627
- Where
- A plain west of the Great Zab, near the ruins of Nineveh, by today’s Mosul in northern Iraq
- War
- Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602 to 628
- Sides
- Emperor Heraclius vs the Persian general Rhahzadh
- Strength
- Not reliably known; Theophanes reports only 50 Byzantine dead
- Result
- Byzantine victory; Rhahzadh killed; Khosrow II overthrown in 628
After years of defeat, Heraclius carried the war into Persia himself. In late 627 he crossed the Great Zab and camped near the ruins of Nineveh, with the Persian general Rhahzadh following him. On 12 December, Theophanes writes, the battle was joined and lasted from dawn until the eleventh hour; World History Encyclopedia calls it an eleven-hour battle. Heraclius rode out ahead of his men, and he is said to have killed Rhahzadh in single combat, a duel later compared with David and Goliath. Myth vs fact: the duel is reported, not proven, and so is Theophanes’ claim that most of the Persian army fell for the loss of only 50 Romans.21
Heraclius marched on and plundered Khosrow II’s palace at Dastagird. The Persian king fled, and on the night of 23 to 24 February 628 his son Kavadh II was proclaimed king. The peace of 628 gave back the occupied provinces and the relic of the True Cross. The triumph was short. Both empires were exhausted, and within a decade the Arabs won at Yarmouk and took Syria, and with it the lands Heraclius had just recovered.22
Why it ranks here: Decisiveness is 5, because the victory brought down Khosrow II and a peace that returned every lost province; both empires were left exhausted and the Arabs took the recovered lands within a decade, so consequence is 4, and the battle is known mainly through Theophanes, writing nearly two centuries later, so certainty is 3.
9 Pliska, 811
- Where
- A pass in the Balkan Mountains, most likely the Varbitsa pass, Bulgaria
- War
- Byzantine and Bulgar wars
- Sides
- Khan Krum of Bulgaria vs Emperor Nikephoros I
- Strength
- Not reliably known; the Byzantine Battles database gives the emperor 80,000 men, a figure we could not confirm
- Result
- Byzantine army destroyed and the emperor killed
Nikephoros I had sacked Pliska, the Bulgar capital, in 810 and came back in 811. His army burned the city in July, and while it plundered, Khan Krum raised everyone he could, women and Avar mercenaries among them, to hold the passes on the road home.23
The army marched into a narrow pass, most likely the Varbitsa pass, and found the road ahead closed by thick wooden walls; then the Bulgars shut the entrance behind it. Against the advice of his generals Nikephoros made camp. At dawn on 26 July, the date Theophanes gives, the Bulgars fell on the camp, and men died by the sword, drowned in a muddy river, fell from the wooden walls or burned in the fires they lit to destroy them. The emperor was killed, the first Byzantine ruler to die at foreign hands in more than 400 years, and his son Staurakios was badly wounded. Theophanes writes that Krum hung the emperor's head on a pole for several days, then had the skull covered with silver and made Slav chieftains drink from it; historians still argue whether he had the story from an eyewitness or from rumor.24
The war went on: Krum beat another Byzantine army at Versinikia in June 813 and was planning to besiege Constantinople when he died in 814.25
Why it ranks here: The loss of an emperor and his army scores 4 for consequence and 4 for memory, but the war went on for years, so decisiveness 3, and the numbers are unknown, so certainty 3; with recognition 3 its 34 points put it two behind Nineveh and three ahead of the siege of Chandax.
10 Siege of Chandax, 960 to 961
- Where
- Chandax (modern Heraklion), Crete, Greece
- War
- Byzantine and Arab wars
- Besiegers
- Nikephoros Phokas for Emperor Romanos II; the sources give no reliable numbers, the Byzantine Battles database speaks of 700 ships and 50,000 troops
- Defenders
- The emir Abd al-Aziz ibn Shu'ayb and the Arabs of Crete; numbers unknown
- Outcome
- City stormed on 7 March 961; Crete back in Byzantine hands
Arabs from Spain took Crete in the 820s, and from their capital Chandax, modern Heraklion, their ships raided the Aegean for more than a century; every expedition sent to win it back failed, the last in 949. In 960 Romanos II gave a far larger fleet and army to Nikephoros Phokas; the sources give no reliable numbers, though the Byzantine Battles database speaks of 700 ships and 50,000 troops.26
The fleet reached Crete on 13 July 960. In the account of Leo the Deacon, the cavalry rode off the ships fully armed down ramps and drove the defenders back into the city, although Theophanes Continuatus and Theodosios the Deacon say the landing was unopposed. Leo says Nikephoros destroyed a relief army, which Leo puts at 40,000 men, in a night attack, and had the heads of the dead set on spears before the walls and hurled into the city. A first assault on the walls failed, so he dug in for the winter. On 7 March 961 a mined stretch of wall collapsed and the troops stormed the breach. The emir and his son were taken to Constantinople, the city was sacked, and the raids from Crete came to an end.27
Why it ranks here: It took Crete back for good after more than a century, so decisiveness 5 and consequence 4. The accounts agree on the outcome and the date but contradict each other on the landing and on Nikephoros’s triumph, and the numbers are chroniclers’, so certainty 3. It is little known (recognition 2, memory 2); it ties Dorostolon on 31 points, recognition and consequence, and goes ahead as the older siege.
11 Dorostolon, 971
- Where
- Dorostolon (modern Silistra) on the Danube, Bulgaria
- War
- Rus and Byzantine war of 970 to 971
- Besiegers
- Emperor John I Tzimiskes; by Leo the Deacon's count 15,000 heavy infantry and 13,000 cavalry in the main force, the rest following with the siege train, and a fleet carrying Greek fire
- Defenders
- Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev; Leo the Deacon gives the Rus army 60,000 men
- Outcome
- The Rus hand over the town and leave Bulgaria by treaty, July 971
Sviatoslav of Kiev had overrun eastern Bulgaria and stood a few days' march from Constantinople. In spring 971 John Tzimiskes marched north, took the Bulgarian capital Preslav and drove Sviatoslav into the Danube fortress of Dorostolon. Leo the Deacon, the main Byzantine narrator, says the emperor led 15,000 heavy infantry and 13,000 cavalry ahead of his siege train, and puts the Rus army at 60,000.28
The siege lasted about three months, from 23 April to 22 July 971 by the dates of the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, while a Byzantine fleet armed with Greek fire held the river. The Rus came out to fight several pitched battles before the walls. In the last, Leo says, 15,500 of them fell, and Sviatoslav, bleeding from arrow wounds, escaped capture only because night came. At dawn he asked for terms: he would give up Dorostolon, free his prisoners and leave Bulgaria, in return for safe passage and grain. Leo writes that 22,000 men received the grain, the survivors of 60,000. Sviatoslav was killed by the Pechenegs on the way home, and Tzimiskes annexed eastern Bulgaria. The Russian Primary Chronicle, which preserves the text of the treaty, tells the earlier fighting at Preslav in a version far kinder to the Rus, and its stories of Sviatoslav are epic tales reworked by the chronicler.29
Why it ranks here: It drove the Rus out of the Balkans for good, so decisiveness 5, and eastern Bulgaria became Byzantine, so consequence 4; the numbers are Leo the Deacon's and the Rus chronicle tells the war differently, so certainty 3. With recognition 2 and memory 2 it ties Chandax on 31 points and drops behind as the younger siege.
12 Taginae, 552
- Where
- Busta Gallorum, near Taginae in the Apennines of Umbria, Italy
- War
- Gothic War
- Sides
- Narses for Emperor Justinian I vs King Totila of the Ostrogoths
- Strength
- Not recorded by Procopius; one modern reference gives 15,000 imperial troops against 7,500 Goths
- Result
- Gothic army routed; Totila mortally wounded
In spring 552 Justinian sent the elderly eunuch Narses to Italy with a large army, including more than 5,500 Lombards and more than 3,000 Heruls, to finish a war the Ostrogoths under Totila had all but won back. He met Totila in the Apennines, at a place Procopius calls Busta Gallorum near Taginae, in late June or early July.30
Narses dismounted his barbarian allies to hold the center on foot and placed 4,000 archers in front of each wing, then swung the wings forward into a crescent. Totila wasted the morning waiting for 2,000 late horsemen, then sent his whole cavalry straight at the center. Raked by arrows from both sides, the Gothic horsemen gave way toward evening and fled into their own infantry, and the whole army ran. Procopius counts 6,000 Gothic dead; many who surrendered were killed afterward. Totila fled in the dark and died of his wound at Caprae; Procopius gives two versions, a Gepid's spear or a stray arrow. Bury notes that Procopius, who probably had the story from an eyewitness, does not tell us the size of either army. Teias, the last Gothic king, fell at Mons Lactarius later in 552, but in 568 the Lombards invaded Italy.31
Why it ranks here: It broke the Goths, but Mons Lactarius and more fighting were still needed, so decisiveness 4, and the Lombards took much of Italy from 568, so consequence 3; it rests on Procopius alone, so certainty 3, and it ties the recapture of Constantinople on 30 points and goes ahead on recognition.
13 Recapture of Constantinople, 1261
- Where
- Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
- War
- Nicaea's war to recover Constantinople from the Latin Empire
- Sides
- Alexios Strategopoulos for Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos vs the Latin Empire of Baldwin II
- Strength
- About 800 men, mostly Cumans, by the Byzantine Battles count; the Latin garrison was away
- Result
- City taken almost without a fight; Byzantine Empire restored in its capital
Since the Fourth Crusade the city had been the seat of a shrinking Latin Empire, while the Greek Empire of Nicaea grew strong. Michael VIII’s brother John beat a western coalition at Pelagonia in 1259, Michael failed before the city in 1260 and in March 1261 bought Genoese help against Venice. In July he sent Alexios Strategopoulos on a reconnaissance along the Bulgarian border with a small force, about 800 men, most of them Cumans, by the Byzantine Battles count.32
At Selymbria Strategopoulos learned from local farmers that the Latin garrison and the Venetian fleet had sailed off to raid the Nicaean island of Daphnousia. The Byzantine historian George Pachymeres calls such men thelematarioi, roughly "volunteers", and it was they who showed the Greeks a way into the city. On the night of 25 July a party got through, surprised the guards and opened a gate, and the city fell without real resistance. According to the Byzantine Battles account, Baldwin II fled by ship and left his insignia behind, and Strategopoulos burned the Venetian quarter, so the returning fleet could only carry off refugees. On 15 August, after 57 years of Latin rule, Michael VIII entered the city in triumph and was crowned in Hagia Sophia. The restored empire was smaller and weaker, but his descendants ruled it until 1453.33
Why it ranks here: It gave the empire back its capital, so consequence 4, but it was hardly a battle and the Latin Empire was already dying, so decisiveness 4; the main events are not in dispute, so certainty 4, but few readers know it (recognition 2), so it ties Taginae on 30 points and loses on recognition.
14 Ad Decimum, 533
- Where
- Ad Decimum, the tenth milestone from Carthage, near Tunis, Tunisia
- War
- Vandalic War
- Sides
- Belisarius for Emperor Justinian I vs King Gelimer of the Vandals
- Strength
- Belisarius brought about 15,000 soldiers, 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry; Vandal numbers not recorded
- Result
- Vandals routed; Carthage occupied two days later
In 533 Justinian sent Belisarius to Africa against Gelimer, who had overthrown the Vandal king Hilderic. The army was small, by Bury's reading of Procopius not more than 16,000 men, with 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, and it landed at the start of September. Procopius, Belisarius's secretary, was with the army and wrote of it as "we".34
Gelimer planned a trap at Ad Decimum, ten miles from Carthage: his brother Ammatas would block the road from the city, Gibamund would strike the flank and Gelimer himself would fall on the rear. On 13 September it came apart. Ammatas arrived hours early with few men, killed twelve Romans with his own hand and fell; Belisarius's Huns destroyed Gibamund's force; Gelimer scattered the Roman vanguard but then stopped to mourn over his brother's body, and Belisarius rallied his men and drove the Vandals off toward Numidia. Procopius wrote that if Ammatas had not come about "the fourth part of a day" too soon, the Vandal cause would never have fallen as it did. The army reached Carthage the next evening and marched in on 15 September. In mid-December Belisarius beat Gelimer again at Tricamarum, which ended the Vandal kingdom, and Carthage stayed Roman until the Arabs took it in 698.35
Why it ranks here: It won Carthage, but Tricamarum was still needed to end the kingdom, so decisiveness 4, and Africa stayed Roman for more than 150 years, so consequence 4; Procopius is the only detailed witness, so certainty 3, and with recognition 2 and memory 2 it scores 29.
15 Siege of Rome, 537 to 538
- Where
- Rome, Italy
- War
- Gothic War
- Besiegers
- King Vitiges of the Ostrogoths; Procopius says not less than 150,000 men, a figure historians reject
- Defenders
- Belisarius with about 5,000 men, later reinforced
- Outcome
- The Goths withdrew after a year and nine days, March 538
Belisarius had taken Rome without a fight at the end of 536, by the Byzantine Battles dating, but he had only about 5,000 men to hold it. Vitiges marched on the city with an army Procopius puts at "not less than one hundred and fifty thousand" horsemen and infantry. J. B. Bury called the figure far beyond the truth, since the whole Ostrogothic people had perhaps hardly reached 100,000 when it entered Italy; the Byzantine Battles database gives a modern estimate of about 45,000.36
The siege began in March 537 and lasted a year and nine days. The Goths built seven camps and cut the aqueducts, and Belisarius kept the city's mills turning on boats moored in the Tiber. A great assault was beaten off, with the defenders of Hadrian's Mausoleum hurling statues down on the attackers, and 1,600 cavalry later slipped in as reinforcements. Procopius was inside, and Belisarius sent him out by night to gather troops and food in Campania. Hunger and disease wore down besiegers and besieged alike. After a truce broke down and the Byzantine general John seized Ariminum, a day's march from Ravenna, Vitiges burned his camps and withdrew in March 538, and Belisarius fell on his rear at the Milvian Bridge, where many Goths drowned. Rome was saved, but the war for Italy went on until Narses's victories in 552.37
Why it ranks here: It held Rome, but the war went on for years, so decisiveness 3 and consequence 3, and it rests on Procopius alone with an impossible figure for the Goths, so certainty 3; with recognition 3 and memory 2 it ties Bapheus on 28 points and goes ahead on recognition.
How we chose and ranked these Byzantine battles
We counted every battle and siege the Eastern Roman Empire fought, won or lost, from the division of the empire in 395 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The sieges of Constantinople count, because the empire lived or died with its capital: that is why 626, 717, 1204 and 1453 are all here. Adrianople in 378 came before 395 and is in our guide to the greatest ancient battles, the men who led these armies are ranked in the greatest commanders of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman side of the story is in the greatest battles of the Ottoman Empire, and sieges ranked for their scale are in the greatest sieges in history.38
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which Byzantine battles are the greatest and best known; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond Byzantine history and appears on most published lists of Byzantine battles, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of the empire, 1 if it settled nothing beyond the day itself.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed borders, dynasties or the balance of power for generations, 1 if the map looked the same a few years later.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a national or church memory, a monument, a proverb, a song), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed; numbers given only by chroniclers such as Procopius, Theophanes or Skylitzes score 3 or lower.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see exactly why the fall of Constantinople is first and why Manzikert, the most famous Byzantine field battle, sits second: Romanos IV was released within a week and most of his army escaped, and Anatolia was lost in the civil wars that followed rather than on the battlefield.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Decisiveness ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fall of Constantinople | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 49 |
| 2 | Manzikert | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 45 |
| 3 | Sack of Constantinople | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 45 |
| 4 | Yarmouk | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 41 |
| 5 | Kleidion | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 41 |
| 6 | Arab siege of Constantinople | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 38 |
| 7 | Avar siege of Constantinople | 2 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 37 |
| 8 | Nineveh | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 36 |
| 9 | Pliska | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 34 |
| 10 | Siege of Chandax | 2 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 31 |
| 11 | Dorostolon | 2 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 31 |
| 12 | Taginae | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 30 |
| 13 | Recapture of Constantinople | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 30 |
| 14 | Ad Decimum | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 29 |
| 15 | Siege of Rome | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 28 |
Close calls
Five battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Bapheus, 1302. Osman's first victory over a Byzantine army: near Nicomedia on 27 July 1302 (Halil İnalcık argued for 1301), some 5,000 Turkish horsemen broke about 2,000 men under Mouzalon, and Bithynia's countryside was lost. It is known above all from the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres, so certainty 2, and it ties the siege of Rome and loses on recognition.39
Anchialos, 917. Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria destroyed the army of Leo Phokas by the river Achelous near Anchialos on 20 August 917, and decades later Leo the Deacon wrote that "today one can still see heaps of bones" there. Yet Simeon never took Constantinople and agreed to a truce in 924, so decisiveness and consequence only 3.40
Dara, 530. Belisarius dug a broken trench before the walls and beat 40,000 Persians with 25,000 men, by Procopius's count; he adds that 10,000 more Persians came up from Nisibis before the main battle. But the Persians won at Callinicum the next year, and the Endless Peace of 532 cost Justinian 11,000 pounds of gold, so decisiveness and consequence 2.41
Myriokephalon, 1176. Manuel I marched on the Seljuk capital Iconium, was trapped in a mountain pass and had to buy his way out by giving up frontier forts. The Byzantine Battles site says Manuel compared it to Manzikert, but in a long letter to Henry II of England he softened the disaster, as A. A. Vasiliev notes; most of the army survived, so decisiveness 3.42
Akroinon, 740. Leo III and his son Constantine V crushed 20,000 Arab raiders under Abdallah al-Battal in Phrygia, by the Byzantine Battles reckoning the empire's first large victory over the Arabs in a pitched battle; Theophanes says only 6,800 escaped. It rests on that short notice, so certainty 2, and it is all but forgotten.43
What was the greatest Byzantine victory?
By our scores the greatest Byzantine victory is Kleidion in 1014, where Basil II broke the army of Tsar Samuel and set the end of the First Bulgarian Empire in motion. Next come the two defenses of the capital, against the Arabs in 717 to 718 and against the Avars in 626, and then Heraclius’s victory at Nineveh in 627.44
The most admired victory of all is not in the fifteen. At Dara in 530 Belisarius dug a line of trenches and beat a larger Persian army, by Procopius’s count 25,000 men against 40,000, and earlier versions of this guide opened with it. It settled little: the Persians won at Callinicum the next year, and Justinian paid 11,000 pounds of gold for the Endless Peace of 532, so Dara scores 2 for decisiveness and consequence and sits among the close calls. Belisarius himself is first in our ranking of the greatest commanders of the Byzantine Empire, and his campaigns are on this list at Ad Decimum and Rome.45
What was the worst defeat of the Byzantine Empire?
The worst was the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which ended the empire, and before it the crusader sack of 1204, which broke it apart for 57 years. In the field, Yarmouk in 636 cost the empire Syria for good, and Manzikert in 1071 opened Anatolia to the Turks through the civil wars that followed it.46
Manzikert is often told as the battle that destroyed the Byzantine army. It did not: Paul Markham puts Byzantine losses at no more than about 8,000, and Romanos IV was free after about a week. The worst day for an emperor came at Pliska in 811, where Nikephoros I was killed with much of his army in a Bulgar trap, the first Byzantine ruler to die at foreign hands in more than 400 years. Adrianople in 378, where Emperor Valens was killed by the Goths, came before the division of the empire and is in our guide to the greatest ancient battles.47
Where we have a full story of a battle, its entry links to it, each with its own sources. Meet the men who led these armies in the greatest commanders of the Byzantine Empire, and see our editorial policy.
