Romans, Egyptians, and the second Arab siege of Constantinople (717/18)

Against a background of discussions around the afterlife of the Byzantine empire in the emergent Islamic caliphate, this chapter explores the defection of Egyptian sailors to the Roman cause during the failed Arab siege of Constantinople in 717/18. It suggests that preparations for the siege are witnessed in Egypt’s papyrological record, and that the sailors’ defection is anticipated by a broader pattern of heightened fiscal pressure and dissent in that same record. In turn, it argues that the failure of the siege is one important context for an intensification of fiscal controls in Egypt in its aftermath, as well as for emergent attempts—in Islamic historiography—to emphasize the subordinate political status of ‘the Copts’, and their strict differentiation from ‘the Romans’. The failed siege is therefore presented as a watershed in the reorientation of Egypt from a post-Roman to an Islamicate society.