Heliodorus\' Aethiopica

[koechlyruestow]

Longovicium wrote:

However, the opposite might also be argued – that indeed the decriptions of the cataphracts as 'living statues' was now a literary topos and one that was quite common; such that not only were imperial panegyricists using it along with historians, so, too, were romance writers! Therefore Heliodorus is merely adapting a commonplace to terrify his readers . . .


Considering my scepticism about cavalry as bulldozer, and the therefore in my view rather fruity description of how a cataphract operated, I am inclined to agree with your second explanation. But could it be that parts of this topos, such as the masked helmets, had existed in literature for much longer, unknown to us, dating back to the centuries for which the existence of such helmets is an established fact?

[M. Demetrius]

Of course it "could be". Can't really base arguments on that, though, can we?

[Nathan Ross]

If this is the true then Ephraim’s account is taken up and exaggerated to the extent that it becomes fact. Julian subverts it by adapting it into a Classical style replete with Trojans and Greeks and by doing so slyly mocks the Christian tendency to attribute God in everything.

Possibly, although it would have had to be very sly - Julian was still supposedly a Christian himself at this point, and Constantius was not well known for his levity!

This Ephraim-Julian-Heliodorus link seems fairly plausible though, if we see it perhaps as a process of successive imaginative amplification. Unless there's some other evidence for Shapur using ships or rafts against the walls of Nisibis, I would be inclined to see this as Julian's own invention. Perhaps he was quoting some other story or episode from history? - few if any of his audience would have witnessed the actual siege, and imperial panegyric is not known for its strict fidelity to historical fact!

Considering my scepticism about cavalry as bulldozer...

At the risk of veering this one back towards the various current cavalry threads, I would have to say I'm a lot less sceptical! We have, I think, sufficient evidence that cataphracts, and more particularly clibanarii, were intended as a 'shock' weapon against formations of infantry. How effective they were in this role can be debated, but if this was not their purpose they seem rather redundant...

[Longovicium]

Yes, I agree. I think the key determinant is the siege vessels. Julian states that Nisibis was under siege for 4 months in the second Oration to Constantius.

The first Oration to Constantius is equally lurid in its details but omits, I think the time-frame:

They began the siege and completely surrounded the city with dykes, and then the river Mygdonius flowed in and flooded the ground about the walls, as they say the Nile floods Egypt. The siege-engines were brought up against the ramparts on boats, and their plan was that one force should sail to attack the walls while the other kept shooting on the city's defenders from the mounds. But the garrison made a stout defence of the city from the walls. The whole place was filled with corpses, wreckage, armour, and missiles, of which some were just sinking, while others, after sinking from the violence of the first shock, floated on the waters. A vast number of barbarian shields and also ship's benches, as a result of the collisions of the siege-engines on the ships, drifted on the surface. The mass of floating weapons almost covered the whole surface between the wall and the mounds. The lake was turned to gore, and all about the walls echoed the groans of the barbarians, slaying not, but being slain in manifold ways and by all manner of wounds.

(composed around 355 AD and available here)

The two key issues is how extant were these dykes/dams/tumuli, etc - and regardless of their circumference, could Shapur build and utilise floating siege weapons?

Julian's account stresses that the damns broke suddenly at a full-tide as if by accident whereas it would seem more probable that Shapur designed the damns to break specifically at a full-tide. I am very ignorant about river mechanics but wonder if the four month period represented how long it took for a sufficient dam of water to build up about Nisibis (or part of it) sufficient to be released and batter the walls? Shapur has his engineers utilise the waiting time to harass the walls and undermine them with rafts and barges/boats as nothing more than preparation for the release. Julian has turned a long preparatory phase into a key dramatic one thus skewering how we read the siege narrative.

In this version then the rafts are perhaps not very numerous - built using locally sourced woods, etc. Forty days is enough time to assemble and build prefabricated vessels often brought along by a siege army to ford rivers. And we know the Sassanians had skilled siege engineers and artificers. While as a writer I adore the tableau vivant of a 'floating city' under siege from boats and of heroic Roman defenders overcoming them as per above, I feel as a realist like you that this is again a moment elevated beyond its truth into rhetoric.

[Nathan Ross]

in the second Oration to Constantius.

Oh, hang on - I thought there was only one! Is the 'second' the one you quoted in an earlier post?

From the first oration:

"then the river Mygdonius flowed in and flooded the ground about the walls, as they say the Nile floods Egypt"

An odd detail about Egypt there... perhaps suggestive as a link back to Heliodorus? Or it could have suggested the story to Heliodorus, perhaps...

Julian's account stresses that the damns broke suddenly at a full-tide

Did it? I thought the breaking dams are only in Theodoret et al and the life of St Ephraim... Which bit have I missed?

And what would 'full tide' be in a river about 800 miles from the sea? Perhaps he means when the dams were full?

However, there is this note (first oration again):

"For who ever heard of surrounding a city with water, and from without throwing hills about it like nets, then hurling at it, like a siege-engine, a river that flowed in a steady stream and broke against its walls"

The 'siege engine' simile is much like the 'battering ram' mentioned by Theodoret, so it sounds like Julian is indeed saying here that Shapur used concentrated water pressure to collapse the walls. This would surely contradict the idea that the Persians dammed the river below the city and let it overspill its banks to form a lake? Very confusing!

I...wonder if the four month period represented how long it took for a sufficient dam of water to build up about Nisibis (or part of it) sufficient to be released and batter the walls? Shapur has his engineers utilise the waiting time to harass the walls and undermine them with rafts and barges/boats as nothing more than preparation for the release.

I did wonder some time ago (confession - I've been interested in the Nisibis siege for a while!) whether the availability of water in the Mygdonius might be a way to estimate which season the siege took place. The river flows down out of the mountains into desert, so presumably would be in spate at the time of the melting of the mountain snows - spring, perhaps? Quite what volume of water it might carry at such a time, or how long it would take to accumulate, I don't know!

However, if the water was to be concentrated and then released against the walls, Shapur would have to dam the river above the city. This would leave the riverbed dry around the walls themselves. To create a lake, on the other hand, he would build his dam below the city...

There's always the possibility that Julian is confused in his note about the 'recent' siege, and that Shapur tried two different applications of water engineering against Nisibis, first using the watery ram, as described by Theodoret, in 337 and then the artificial lake (with or without boats!) in 350. This would partly explain things, perhaps, although we'd have to wonder why Julian thought both tactics had been used during the same episode.

[Longovicium]

The main detail seems to lie in the Second Oration which has been quoted earlier. The first one is less 'florid' perhaps! But both do mention floods and siege engines on boats, etc.

I quote from the Second Oration to Constantius re the dam/full-tide:

When this had been going
on for many days in succession, part of the dyke
gave way and the water flowed in in full tide,
carrying with it a portion of the wall as much
as a hundred cubits long.

I think I have misread that line about the full-tide. Julian seems to be saying that the damns broke suddenly precipitating the waters onto the walls as if in full-tide.

Hmm, it is possible that Shapur's artificers are doing both? An initial dam around the city to create the 'lake' which is then gated-off upstream to create a subsequent body of water back up the Mygdonius. Or perhaps Shapur sees that the initial lake idea is simply not working and then improvises an additional siege tactic of building up a body of water to release as a 'battering-ram'? I do find it an interesting coincidence that an accidental giving way of the dyke leads to exactly the effect Shapur has been seeking all along. But if the breach was intentional and planned/improvised after the failed four month 'lake' siege then why does Julian not mention that? It would prove an even greater victory over the Persians as opposed to this accidental breach and subsequent successful defense.

The sequence in Julian is unequivocal:

Arrival
Damming of the Mygdonius around Nisibis
Fruitless siege attempts in boats/rafts for four months
Sudded breach which causes a section of the walls to collapse (how long is a 100 cubits? Is this a rhetorical figure? If it is, we need to demonstrate that with references to other texts, for example).
Successful defense of 3 attacks
Shapur retreats

Julian ignores the vision of Constantius on the walls and the other superstitous descriptions and concentrates on a panegyrical approach using Classical imagery. If he has incorporated Ephraim's Biblical flood imagery and converted it into a Homeric one then we can perhaps discard the whole 'lake' topos and instead imagine the Persian engineers simply damming the river above the city and then releasing the waters on cue as a battering ram. However, this leaves a four month period hanging between the start of the siege and the release of the waters. I am no expert (on many things!) and know little of siege/water mechanics! Perhaps four months means that the waters were NOT in spate from a Spring thaw but that the siege commenced after that period . . . ?

By the way, I am planning a trekking holiday to Cappadocia in early Summer as background research for the latest novel and may be able to include Nisibis. Amida was on the itinerary but the Trekking company for some reason have removed it this year!

[Nathan Ross]

An initial dam around the city to create the 'lake' which is then gated-off upstream to create a subsequent body of water back up the Mygdonius. Or perhaps Shapur sees that the initial lake idea is simply not working and then improvises an additional siege tactic of building up a body of water to release as a 'battering-ram'? I do find it an interesting coincidence that an accidental giving way of the dyke leads to exactly the effect Shapur has been seeking all along.

I still don't see how this would work. If the bursting dam caused the water to flow against the walls, then the water was not previously in contact with the walls, which means that there would have been no lake to float anything on! If the lake was already there, then the bursting dam or dyke would have caused the water to drain away from the walls, more probably flooding the Persians' own siege camp...

:dizzy:

I am planning a trekking holiday to Cappadocia in early Summer as background research for the latest novel and may be able to include Nisibis. Amida was on the itinerary but the Trekking company for some reason have removed it this year!

Maybe Amida was removed because of its proximity to the Syrian border? I believe that Nusaybin (Nisibis) is in the vicinity of a number of very large refugee camps, and the border zone in general is pretty precarious at the moment, for obvious reasons.

[Longovicium]

Have you read this article? It pretty much sums up everything discussed so far:

Facts and Fiction: The Third Siege of Nisibis (A.D. 350)
C. S. Lightfoot
Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte
Bd. 37, H. 1 (1st Qtr., 1988), pp. 105-125

available here.

[Longovicium]

The thesis:

'HELIODOROS AITHIOPIKA I:
A COMMENTARY WITH PROLEGOMENA
Submitted for the degree of Ph. D.
in the University of London
by
John William Birchall
of
University College London
(Department of Greek and Latin)

1996

provides several useful summaries of the views regarding the dating of The Aethiopica. For example:

"G.W. Bowersock22 (1994), having discussed some of the previous
contributions to the discussion of the date of Heliodoros, describes T.
Szepessy's interpretation of Ephraem as 'simply wrong'. Szepessy objected
that the tumuli in Ephraem's account of the siege of Nisibis could not be
compared with the earthworks which surrounded Syene. Bowersock asserts
that Szepessy was misled by the Latin translation of Ephraem which he used,
stating of the word there translated tumuli, "The Syriac plural ta/ala matches
precisely the use of Xdl.tcta to describe the earthworks in Heliodorus (9.3),
and Itatc is similarIty the word used in two places by Julian in his account of
the siege of Nisibis." Bowersock then points out that the embassies to
Hydaspes in Heliodoros X appear to be echoed in the Histonia Augusta:
Aurelian 33 includes Blemmyes, Exomitae (Aksumites) and giraffes; Aurelian
44 includes Blemmyes, Exomitae and Seres (Chinese). He argues that because
the Chinese would not historically have visited Ethiopia Heliodoros and the HA
are interdependent. He also suggests that the presence of cataphracts in both
the Aithiopika and the I-IA24 reflects a general interest in this type of armour
among late fourth century writers; and concludes that the HA imitated
Heliodoros."

with also a useful summary of the Lightfoot article quoted above:

"C. S. Lightfoot Hi.sioria 37 (1988) 105-125, in a fine and detailed study of the
historical siege of Nisibis, concludes that Julian's accounts contain a mixture of
factual information (in particular, that the city walls were breached by a torrent
of water released against them), and of fiction (in particular the idea that a dyke
erected around the city produced a lake upon which ships could sail21).
Lightfoot assumes that Julian imitated the fictional components of his account
from 1-leliodoros, and provides perhaps the strongest argument on the side of
those who believe that Julian imitated Heliodoros. Of course, even with
Lightfoot's view of the evidence, it remains possible that the fictional elements
in Julian's account were invented by himself and imitated by Heliodoros, or
derived from a source (not necessarily an historical account of the third siege of
Nisibis) which he shared with Heliodoros. The links between Heliodoros' siege
of Syene and what Lightfoot regards as the/actual elements in the sources for
the siege of Nisibis are slight: the diversion of a river, and the collapse of part
of the city walls under the weight of water. However, against those who
would use Lightfoot's arguments to support a third century date for
Heliodoros, the argument that contemporary public interest in the siege of
Nisibis is required to explain why Heliodoros included the siege of Syene in the
Aithiopika, an incident not essential to the plot, retains its validity."