Byzantium at War AD 600-1453（战争中的拜占庭：公元600-1453年）（3）
A brief survey of Byzantine history
拜占庭的历史简述（第一部分）
By the later 5th century the western part of the Roman empire had been transformed into a patchwork of barbarian successor states. Emperors at Constantinople continued to view all the lost territories as part of their realm, however, and in some cases to treat the kings of the successor kingdoms as their legitimate representatives, governing Roman affairs in the provinces in question until Constantinople could re-establish a full administrative and military presence. This is most obviously the case with the Ostrogothic leader Theoderic who, although he ruled nominally in the name of the Emperor, established a powerful state in Italy. The leader of the Salian Franks in northern Gaul, Clovis, had quite deliberately adopted Orthodox Christianity in the last years of the 5th century in order to gain papal and imperial recognition and support for his rule, where he also claimed, at least nominally, to represent Roman rule. Roman Emperors considered the west not as 'lost', but rather as temporarily outside direct imperial authority.
（到了5世纪后期，罗马帝国的西部变成了由蛮族继承国组成的大杂烩。然而，君士坦丁堡的皇帝继续将所有失去的领土视为他们领土的一部分，并且在某些情况下将继承王国的国王视为他们的合法代表，管理有关省份的罗马事务，直到君士坦丁堡可以重建全面的行政和军事存在。最明显的例子就是东哥特领袖狄奥德里克，虽然他名义上以皇帝的名义统治，但他在意大利建立了一个强大的国家。高卢北部萨利安法兰克人的领袖克洛维斯在5世纪的最后几年相当刻意地接受了东正教，以获得教皇和帝国对其统治的认可和支持，他还声称，至少在名义上， 代表罗马统治。罗马皇帝并不认为西方是“丢失的”，而是暂时处于直接帝国权力之外。）
The Emperor Justinian (527-65) used this as the justification for a series of remarkable reconquests, aimed at restoring Rome's power as it had been at its height - north Africa from the Vandals by 534, Italy from the Ostrogoths by 552. But the plan was too ambitious to have had any chance of permanent success. And while the Emperor nevertheless came very close to achieving a major part of his original aims, the problems that arose after his death illustrated the problems his policies brought with them. Warfare with the Persian empire in t he cast meant that resources were always stretched to the limit and there were never enough soldiers for all fronts. Upon his death in 565 Justinian left a vastly expanded but perilously overstretched empire, in both financial and military terms. His successors were faced with the reality of dealing with new enemies, a lack of ready cash, and internal discontent over high taxation and constant demands for soldiers and the necessities to support them. The Persian war was renewed, while in 568 the Germanic Lombards crossed from their homeland along the western Danube and Drava region into Italy, in their efforts to flee the approaching Avars, a Turkic nomadic power which was establishing a vast steppe empire. The Lombards soon overran Roman defensive positions in the north of the peninsula, founding a number of independent chiefdoms in the centre and south, while the Avars established themselves as a major challenge to imperial power in the northern Balkan region. between the mid-570s and the end of the reign of the Emperor Maurice (582-602), the empire was able to re-establish a precarious balance in the east and along the Danube.
（查士丁尼皇帝（527-65年）以此为理由进行了一系列非凡的征服，旨在恢复罗马鼎盛时期的实力——534 年从汪达尔人手中夺回北非，在552年从东哥特人手中夺回意大利。他的计划过于雄心勃勃，以至于没有任何永久成功的机会。尽管皇帝已经非常接近实现他最初目标的主要部分，但他死后出现的问题说明了他的政策带来的问题。与波斯帝国的战争意味着资源总是捉襟见肘，所有战线都没有足够的士兵。查士丁尼于565年去世后，留下了一个在财政和军事方面都非常扩张但极度扩张的帝国。 他的继任者面临着与新敌人打交道的现实，缺乏现成的现金，内部对高税收的不满以及对士兵和支持他们的必需品的不断要求。波斯战争再次爆发，而在568年，日耳曼伦巴第人从他们的家乡沿着多瑙河西部和德拉瓦地区进入意大利，以逃离即将到来的阿瓦尔人，这是一个正在建立庞大草原帝国的突厥游牧民族。伦巴第人很快占领了半岛北部的罗马防御阵地，在中部和南部建立了许多独立的酋长领地，而阿瓦尔人则将自己确立为对巴尔干北部地区帝国权力的主要挑战。在570年代中期到莫里斯皇帝（582-602）统治结束之间，帝国才能够在东部和多瑙河沿岸重新建立不稳定的平衡。）
Maurice was deposed in 602 following a mutiny of the Danube forces, and the centurion Phokas was raised to the throne. Phokas (602-10), popularly regarded in later Byzantine sources as a tyrant, ruled until he was overthrown in 610, when he was in turn replaced by Heraclius, the son of the military governor of Africa. Heraclius was crowned Emperor and ruled until 641.
（602年多瑙河军队叛变后，莫里斯被废黜，百夫长福卡斯登上王位。 福卡斯（602-10年）在后来的拜占庭文献中被普遍认为是暴君，他一直统治到610年被推翻，随后他被非洲军事总督的儿子赫拉克利乌斯取代。赫拉克略被加冕为皇帝并统治到 641 年。）
But the empire was unable to maintain its defences against external pressure. Within a few years the Avars and Slays had overrun much of the Balkans, while the Persians occupied and set up their own provincial governments in Syria and Egypt between 614 and 618, and continued to push into Asia Minor. Italy was left to its own devices and became increasingly autonomous. In spite of a great siege of Constantinople by a Persian and an Avaro-Slav army in 626, Heraclius proved an able strategist and by 628 had utterly destroyed the Persian armies in the east, restoring the situation at the end of Maurice's reign. The regional dominance of the Roman empire seemed assured. But while the Danube remained nominally the frontier, much of the Balkan region was no longer under imperial authority, except when an army appeared. The financial situation of the empire, whose resources were quite exhausted by the long wars, was desperate.
（但帝国无法抵御外部压力。几年之内，阿瓦尔人和斯莱人占领了巴尔干的大部分地区，而波斯人在614至618年间占领并在叙利亚和埃及建立了自己的省政府，并继续向小亚细亚推进。 意大利被放任自流，变得越来越自治。尽管626 年波斯人和阿瓦罗-斯拉夫军队对君士坦丁堡进行了大围攻，但赫拉克略证明了他是一位能干的战略家，并在 628 年彻底摧毁了东方的波斯军队，恢复了莫里斯统治末期的局势。罗马帝国的地区统治地位似乎得到了保证。虽然多瑙河名义上仍然是边境，但巴尔干地区的大部分地区不再处于帝国统治之下，除非军队出现。资源被长期战争消耗殆尽的拜占庭帝国，财政状况十分危急。）
The origins of Islam lie in the northern Arabian peninsula, where different forms of Christianity, Judaism and indigenous beliefs coexisted, in particular in the much-travelled trading and caravan communities of Mecca and Medina. Mohammed was himself a respected and established merchant who had several times accompanied the trade caravans north to Roman Syria. Syria and Palestine already had substantial populations of Arabs, both farmers and herdsmen, as well as mercenary soldiers serving the empire as a buffer against the Persians. Although Mohammed's preaching - a synthesis of his own beliefs with Judaic and Christian ideas met initially with stiff resistance from his own clan, by 628-29 he had established his authority over much of the peninsula and begun to consider the future direction of the new Islamic community. On his death (traditionally placed in 632) there followed a brief period of warfare during which his immediate successors had to fight hard to reassert Islamic authority. The raids mounted against both Roman and Persian territories were in part a response to the political demands generated by this internal conflict. A combination of incompetence and apathy, disaffected soldiers and inadequate defensive arrangements resulted in a series of disastrous Roman defeats and the loss of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Egypt within the short span of 10 years, so that by 642 the empire was reduced to a rump of its former self. The Persian empire was completely overrun and destroyed by the 650s. The Arab Islamic empire was horn.
（伊斯兰教起源于阿拉伯半岛北部，在那里不同形式的基督教、犹太教和土著信仰共存，特别是在麦加和麦地那人来人往的贸易和商队。穆罕默德本人是一位受人尊敬的老牌商人，曾多次陪同贸易商队向北前往罗马叙利亚。叙利亚和巴勒斯坦已经有大量的阿拉伯人，包括农牧民，以及为帝国服务的雇佣兵，作为对抗波斯人的缓冲。尽管穆罕默德的讲道——将他自己的信仰与犹太教和基督教思想相结合，最初遭到了他自己氏族的强烈抵制，但到628-29年，他已经在半岛的大部分地区建立了自己的权威，并开始考虑新伊斯兰教的未来方向。 在他去世（传统上定于632年）之后，他的势力经历了一段短暂的战争，在此期间，他的直接继任者不得不为重新确立伊斯兰权威而艰苦奋斗。对罗马和波斯领土的突袭在一定程度上是对这场内部冲突产生的政治要求的回应。无能和冷漠、心存不满的士兵和不适当的防御安排相结合，导致罗马在短短10年内遭受了一系列灾难性的失败以及叙利亚、巴勒斯坦、美索不达米亚和埃及的丢失，从而到642年帝国沦为一个只有最初大小领土的国家。波斯帝国在650年代被完全占领和摧毁，阿拉伯伊斯兰帝国是吹响这场毁灭的号角。）
未完待续
