Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 115 h Arabs and Arabia in the Byzantine Sources: Hagiographical Testimonies to shed light on the history of ancient Arabia. Similarly, works not taken into account, e.g., the narrations, which transmit the Martyrion of the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion could be useful as well. Needless to point out, that Arabs and Saracens — with the possible exception of the Ghassanides, allies of Byzantium against the Persian empire — have been traditionally represented as adversaries, awful and evil, in historiography as well. This image, enforced by religious prejudice, is expected to have a specific portrayal and expression in Byzantine hagiography. Our approach sticks to the basic: Hagiographical information could not be a priori dismissed; its critical use is always valuable and could be an essential supplement to accounts and information recorded in other literary sources.  Key words : Byzantine Hagiography, Arabia, Palestine, Sinai, South Arabia, Najran, Anatolia, Aegean, Arabs, Saracens, Photios’ Bibliotheca, Ignatios Deacon. Hagiography is a particular literary genre. “If today we consider hagiography one of the most stereotyped and easily recognisable literary entities, this is largely due to the replicated integration of its hero, the saint, into a sequence of topoi and clichés woven into a highly encomiastic discourse”. 2 From a philological point of view huge research has been done, in order to evaluate the various stages in the development of this literary genre. As far as historians are concerned, additional difficulties might occur and hagiographical information should be approached with caution in various research contexts. Third Palestine and the Sinai Daniel Caner has assembled, in the form of a useful and practical collection, “texts …(which) present the interactions and outlook of monks, pilgrims, and Bedouins (‘Saracens’) on the Sinai Peninsula from the fourth to the seventh centuries”. 3 Those texts are the major Sinai narratives by Pseudo- Nilus , referred to as Nilus of Ancyra as well, Ammonius narrations , and the works of Anastasius of Sinai . The fact that Sinai was the first region of the Roman Empire that was the target of Arab raids as well as its distinctive nature as frontier underline a peculiarity: an “invention of tradition” which is 2 St. Efthymiadis, Introduction, in: The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiogra- phy , ed. St. Efthymiadis, vol. II: Genres and Contexts, Farnham-Burlington 2014, 3. 3 D. F. Caner, with contributions by S. Brock, R. M. Price, and K. van Bladel, History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai, Including translations of Pseudo-Nilus’ Narrations, Ammonius’ Report on the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithou, and Anastasius of Sinai’s Tales of the Sinai Fathers (TTH 53), Liverpool 2010, 1.