"Buffer states" as an instrument of Byzantine foreign policy in Italy in the 9 - mid-11th centuries (according to tangible and written sources)

This study is a continuation of our analysis of the foreign policy of the Byzantine emperors from the Macedonian dynasty to build security belts on the borders of the empire. During the reign of the Macedonian dynasty, the Byzantine emperors took a number of measures to strengthen their power in Southern Italy. The empire sought to retain the existing possessions here, but not to acquire new ones. At the turn of the 10th–11th centuries, the lands of the empire, united in the Catepanate of Italy, were protected from the north by the buffer principalities of Salerno, Benevento, Capua and the states of Campania. The attempts made by the basileus, covering themselves with a «Lombard shield» from the north failed. After the death of Basil II in 1025, the loyalty of the principalities of the «Lombard shield» to the later emperors of the House of Macedon began to decline. One of the key factors that predetermined the collapse of both the buffer zone and the empire’s power in the region in general was the gradual latinization of the roman population of the Byzantine possessions. The predominance of the non-Greek element, subordinate to the Roman Church, increased the alienation of the population of southern Italy from the central imperial power. Under the influence of the «geopolitical attraction» from the western «Roman Empire» recreated by Otto I, the princes of Salerno and Benevento increasingly sided with the Germans. The stability of the buffer zone in Italy, in contrast to the eastern direction, was low due to the fact that here the local rulers had an alternative pole of attraction in the fight against the Arab threat. In the 9th - 10th centuries, these were the Italian kings from the Carolingian dynasty, who were replaced by the emperors of the Ottonian «Roman Empire».

Byzantium, the Buffer states, Southern Italy, Lombards, Normans, Macedonian dynasty, Vasily II the Bulgar-Slayer, Theme system, Catepanate Italy, Sicilian Arabs