Battle of Akroinon
Emperor Leo III and his son Constantine V routed one of the three columns of the largest Umayyad invasion of Asia Minor in decades, and both its commanders fell. It was the first Byzantine victory over the Arabs in a major pitched battle for decades; together with the caliphate’s troubles on other fronts, it ended the great Arab incursions into Anatolia for some thirty years.
- Date
- 740year known
- Place
- Akroinonapproximate locationtoday: Afyonkarahisar, Turkey · Balkans and Anatolia
- Participants
- Byzantine Empire, Leo III the Isaurian, Constantine V, Umayyad Caliphate, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
- Threads
- Early medieval Europe (500–1000)
- Also known as
- Akroinos; Акроин; Battle of Afyon; Abdallah al-Battal; Battal Gazi; Баттал Гази
After the failure before Constantinople in 717–718 the Umayyads returned to yearly raids into Asia Minor, and Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik gave them greater weight. When a victory over the Khazars in 737 freed his forces, he sent out in 740 the largest expedition of his reign under his son Sulayman. According to Theophanes the Confessor it numbered 90,000 men in three columns: 10,000 light troops raided the western coastlands, some 60,000 under Sulayman ravaged Cappadocia (a figure modern historians consider much inflated), and 20,000 under Abdallah al-Battal and al-Malik ibn Shu'ayb marched on Akroinon in Phrygia.
Leo III and Constantine met this column at Akroinon. No details of the fighting survive; Theophanes reports that both Arab commanders and 13,200 of their men fell, while the rest withdrew in good order to Synnada and joined Sulayman. The other two columns plundered the countryside but took no town or fortress, and suffered from hunger on the way back; the 10th-century Arab Christian historian Agapius says that the Byzantines took 20,000 prisoners.
Akroinon was the first Byzantine victory over the Arabs in a major pitched battle for decades, and in the view of historians it strengthened Leo III’s belief in his iconoclast policy. It was long regarded as a turning point; E. W. Brooks, Walter Kaegi and Ralph-Johannes Lilie, however, attribute the easing of Arab pressure mainly to the caliphate’s defeats on other frontiers, the civil wars of the 740s and the Abbasid revolution. The fallen Abdallah al-Battal lived on as a hero of Arabic and Turkish epic, Sayyid Battal Ghazi.
Connections
Related events
- Second Arab siege of Constantinoplebetween 15 July and 15 August 717 – 15 August 718 · Balkans and AnatoliaAfter the failed siege of 717–718 the Umayyads returned to yearly raids into Asia Minor, which Akroinon helped to end
- Berber Revolt against the Umayyadsbetween 739 and 740 – between 742 and 743 · AfricaAkroinon coincided with the outbreak of the Berber revolt in North Africa; Khalid Blankinship counts both among the simultaneous defeats on distant fronts that overstretched the caliphate and brought down the Umayyads
- Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843 · Balkans and AnatoliaHistorians think the victory strengthened Leo III’s belief in his iconoclast policy
Same participants
- Indian kings repel the Arab raids from Sind: Nagabhata I and the battle of Navsari723 – between 738 and 739 · South Asiavia Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
- Battle of Tours10 October 732 · Western and Central Europevia Umayyad Caliphate
- The Ecloga: law code of Leo III and Constantine Vbetween 726 and 741 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire
- Plague in Constantinople, 746–747746 – between 747 and 748 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire
Adjacent events in the thread
- Mission of Boniface in Germany15 May 719 – 5 June 754 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Mission of Boniface in Germany15 May 719 – 5 June 754
Eastern Europe
- Volyntsevo culture: the Slavs of the Dnieper Left Bank in the Khazar agebetween 700 and 750 – between 813 and 833
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
Middle East and Egypt
- Abu Hanifa and Malik: the oldest surviving Sunni schools of lawbetween 737 and 738 – 795
Africa
- Berber Revolt against the Umayyadsbetween 739 and 740 – between 742 and 743
South Asia
- Lalitaditya Muktapida rules Kashmir: the Sun temple of Martandbetween 724 and 725 – between 760 and 761
- Indian kings repel the Arab raids from Sind: Nagabhata I and the battle of Navsari723 – between 738 and 739
East Asia
- Reign of Emperor Xuanzong: the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras8 September 712 – 12 August 756
North America
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- Basketmaker III: pottery, beans and the bow on the Colorado Plateauc. 500 – c. 750
Latin America
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Battle of Akroinon
- Wikipedia (Russian): Битва при Акроиноне
- Blankinship K. Y. The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. — Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
- The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor / transl. C. Mango, R. Scott. — Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
- Wikidata: Q128996