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2. The First Arab Impact DURING THE FIRST HALF of the ninth century, southern Italy, almost entirely free ofany Byzantine presence and seemingly more or less forgotten by the Carolingians, began to slide within the orbit of Islam. The real role of the Arabs in south Italian history has had little attention. General histories ofmedieval Europe, hurrying on from Charlemagne to the twelfth century, typically treat the Arab impact in the ninth and tenth centuries as the Mediterranean equivalent of Viking incursions in the north and the Magyar thrust farther east. Sometimes there is a map, with arrows, depicting Europe as a sort of allegorical St. Sebastian, an innocent and passive figure assailed by Arab, Viking, and Magyar arrows of violence, destruction , and death. In fact, however, the Arab impact on southern Italy was far more complex than any such visual aid suggests. (Ethnically, too, the Arab situation was complex; the "Arabs" were by no means all ethnic Arabs. Yet "Saracen," although often used in contemporary sources, now carries too many literary connotations. Therefore, in this study, "Arab" serves as the general term.) The Arab impact was in fact very different from that of the Vikings and the Magyars. Unquestionably, Arab raids caused violence, destruction, and death; they were devastating in their effect on many parts of southern Italy, particularly in the ninth century but also, in some sections , on into the early eleventh century. And yet in southern Italy raids were by no means the only element in the Arab impact. Throughout this period, in cultural splendor and affiuence the Islamic Mediterranean world vied with, and in some respects surpassed, Byzantium. Despite the raids, over time the south Italian relationship with the Islamic sphere brought increased prosperity, at least to much of Campania. And there were other effects as well. The first notable change related to the Arab factor came in 849: a political reconfiguration of the Lombard regions.l It was preceded by the Arab raid on Rome in 846, which centuries later was still remembered as one ofthe dramatic crisis points in papal history. The background of both these midcentury events warrants exploration. The First Arab Impact 19 The Road to Arab Mercenaries At the start ofthe ninth century, the southern Lombards dominated most of lower Italy, including most of Campania. Their ruler, styling himself "Prince of the Beneventans," or sometimes "Prince of the Lombard peoples ," governed from two capitals: the old, traditional capital at Benevento, with its evocation ofLombard magnificence in its public monuments, and the new, second capital on the coast at Salerno, a town the Lombards had apparently held since the seventh century but that had only achieved enhanced status and fortification under Arichis 11.2 Within Campania, only the duchy of Naples and its dependencies still resisted Lombard dominance . The Lombards had nibbled away at Naples' territory to the north and east ofthe city, so that less now remained beyond the coastal strip along the bay.3 That coastal strip did, however, extend down to include the Amalfitan peninsula (the southern arm of the Bay of Naples) and thus Sorrento and Amalfi, on either side ofthat peninsula, were still satellites of Naples. Altogether, Naples and her dependencies constituted a tempting target for the Lombards. The two rulers who successively held the southern Lombard throne from the death ofArichis II in 787 to 817, Grimoald III and Grimoald IV, were presumably kept busy solidifying their control over the rest ofsouthern Italy. Neither seems to have proved particularly threatening to Naples. In 817, however, perhaps because Grimoald IV was an ineffective ruler, or perhaps because the revenues now coming in from so large a land area made the southern Lombard throne an increasingly attractive prize, he was assassinated and replaced as prince by an ambitious relative, Sico, the erstwhile gastald ofAcerenza.4 (Acerenza, perched on a peak on the upland plateau of Basilicata, is now merely an impoverished hill-town, but it had been a reasonably important center in the Roman era and its strategic location kept it important on into the Norman period.) The pace ofevents in southern Italy now quickened. Sico and his son Sicard ruled successively from 817 to 839. The ninthcentury Monte Cassino chronicler Erchempert and the tenth-century Chronicon Salernitanum describe both as strong and ruthless rulers, draining church treasuries and evincing an especially keen interest in tax collection throughout their extensive territory (including, of course, regions once held or claimed by Byzantium). The sources say, for example, that the...

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