Secrecy, Technology, and War: Greek Fire and the Defense of Byzantium, 678–1204

Abstract

Secrecy, Technology, and War: Greek Fire and the Defense of Byzantium, 678—1204 ALEX ROLAND In 678, Constantinople was in extremis. For the fifth consecutive year, an Arab fleet, raised and dispatched by the great Caliph Muawija and based at the captured peninsula of Cyzicus, just south of Constantinople, was combining with an army before the European walls of the city to besiege the Byzantine capital. Seemingly powerless to drive off the newly established naval power of the Arabs, the Byzantines huddled within their walls and prayed. Their prayers were answered by a man named Kallinikos, a Greek architect or engineer who had recently escaped from his Arab conquerors in Syria in order, it is said, to bring a new and decisive invention to the Byzantines. He had invented what came to be called Greek Are, a napalm-like substance that burned in water and could be projected great distances from the bows of ships. Relying on his weapon, the Byzantines succeeded in driving off the Arab fleet and lifting the siege of Constantinople. The Arabs, for their part, encoun­ tered a killer storm in their flight for home and lost most of the remaining vessels that had not been scorched by Kallinikos and his fire.1 One or two generations later, the story was repeated. A powerful Arab fleet and army appeared before the walls of Constantinople in Dr. Roland is professor of history at Duke University. He wishes to thank I. B. Holley, Jr., Pamela Long, Seymour Mauskopf, Rod Paschall, Dennis Simms, and Everett Wheeler, who read the manuscript and provided helpful criticism. Thanks also to the T&C referees for more of the same. ‘This likens the tale to another famous naval victory, the triumph of Queen Elizabeth’s fleet over the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Armada was driven off in part by fire ships and suffered grievously in storms on the return voyage around the British Isles. See Garrett Mattingly, The Armada (Boston, 1959), in which the victory achieves the same religious and symbolic significance that the Byzantine triumph of 678 came to enjoy.© 1992 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/92/3304-0001$01.00 655 656 Alex Roland 717 and again laid siege to the city.2 Once more the Christians unleashed their secret weapon, this time an apparently improved version that was even more effective than the original. The invading army was held at the walls while the fleet was torched and defeated. The Arabs fled once more in 718, never again to pose a serious threat to the Byzantine capital. In the second victory, the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne saw “a historical fact of far greater importance than the battle of Poitiers.”3 Coming within fifteen years of Charles Martel’s victory over the Muslims advancing into southern France, the repulse of the Arabs at Constantinople blocked further Muslim expansion and left Euro­ pean civilization to find an independent course into the modern world. Others have echoed Pirenne. Romilly Jenkins called the first repulse of the Arabs “a turning point in the history of mankind.”4 George Ostrogorsky said that the Arab attack of 678 “was the fiercest which had ever been launched by the infidels against a Christian stronghold, and the Byzantine capital was the last dam left to withstand the rising Muslim tide. The fact that it held saved not only the Byzantine Empire, but the whole of European civilization.”5 What was this remarkable weapon, this Greek fire that so many historians have seen as a decisive technology in the evolution of the West? To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it was a misnomer wrapped in a misconception, confused in translation, veiled in secrecy, and embellished with apochrypha. The composition and use of Greek fire was a state secret that died with the Byzantine empire, in fact disappeared long before Byzantium ran its course. To this day historians have been unable to agree on the composition and use of Greek Are, in spite of repeated attempts by chemists and historians to discern its nature from a fragmented historical record.6 2The return of an Asian invading force a generation after a first failed attempt is...