Legions of Rome (87 page)

On the orders of the emperor Constantius, King Chonodomar was subsequently sent to Rome, where he was kept a prisoner at the Castra Peregrina, the Caelian Hill barracks used by allied troops based in Rome. Chonodomar would end his days there. Young Julian’s reputation as the general who had dealt the previously unstoppable Alemanni a bloody defeat, and restored the Rhine frontier, swept throughout the Roman world. Within four years, Julian would be emperor of Rome.

AD
359
LXXI. SURVIVING THE SIEGE OF AMIDA
100,000 Persians, 73 bloody days

From a clifftop, two Roman officers and their Armenian guide watched in awe as the Persian army of 100,000 men passed below them, filling the plain for 50 miles (80 kilometers). Out in front rode Shapur the Great, Persian “king of kings,” tenth ruler of the Sasanian dynasty that had overthrown the Parthian kings to rule the former Parthia. Shapur was leading his army on a campaign to invade the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces.

The senior of the two Roman officers observing the slowly passing Persian multitude was 29-year-old Ammianus Marcellinus, a young gentleman of Greek ancestry and a native of Antioch in Syria. As a teenager, at Mediolanum in Italy, Ammianus had become a junior officer with the Protectores Domestici, or Household Protectors, the personal bodyguard of the emperor Constantius
II
. Five years later, in the year 353, Ammianus had returned to his home town of Antioch to join the staff of Ursicinus, who had been the comes, or count, in overall command of the military in the Roman East since
AD
348. Ammianus had been the count’s faithful aide ever since.

Just a week or so before this, as spring edged toward summer and there was no news of Persian intentions, Ammianus had been sent into enemy territory by Count Ursicinus, accompanied by a centurion, to gather intelligence on Persian movements. A local satrap friendly to Rome had told the pair to occupy a certain escarpment, and wait. Sure enough, after Ammianus and his companions had camped on the ridge for two days, the Persian army had appeared on the horizon and moved across the plain before their eyes. To Shapur’s left, Ammianus could see King Grumbates of the Chionitae, an old and shriveled man “but of a certain greatness of mind and
distinguished by the glory of many victories.” [Amm.,
XVIII
, 6, 22] To the right of the Persian monarch rode the king of the Albani, the tribe that then peopled modern-day Georgia.

The rulers and their entourages of generals and bodyguards were followed by a multitude of troops of every kind—infantry spearmen, foot archers, wave after wave of horse archers, men of the cataphract heavy cavalry in armor from head to toe, a camel corps of light cavalry and even lumbering war elephants whose fighting towers filled with spearmen swayed from side to side on the elephants’ massive backs with each step the animals took. These eastern troops had been “chosen from the flower of the neighboring nations and taught to endure hardships by lengthy continued training.” [Ibid.]

Ever since the year
AD
337, Shapur had regularly sent his army across the Tigris river against Roman strongholds in Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, trying to force the Romans out of the region. Over thirteen years of sieges and skirmishes in which the countering Roman army had been led by the emperor Constantius himself, the Persian king had achieved some successes, notably the razing of the Roman fortress at Hileia in
AD
348. In that same year there had also been a battle at the fortress of Singara in Mesopotamia (modern-day Sinjar in northern Iraq), where, Ammianus was to write, a “furious contest took place at night and our troops were cut to pieces with great carnage.” The Romans had lost a great many men at Singara, but had either retained, or soon after reclaimed, the fortress, with both sides touting victory in the contest. [Ibid., 5, 7]

Yet Shapur had not reached the prize city of Edessa or seized the bridges across the Euphrates that acted as the gates to the rich Roman provinces further west. A few small fish, tasty though they may be, do not a banquet make. Besides, following Rome’s disasters of
AD
348, a new Roman commander had arrived in the East—Ursicinus. And ever since Ursicinus had taken command, the legions of the East had fought without loss. [Ibid.,
XVIII
, 6, 2]

Tired of the contest with Rome, and stymied by Ursicinus, in
AD
350 Shapur had suspended his war against Rome to concentrate on subduing troublesome neighbors. This had allowed Constantius to return to Europe and deal with Vetranio and Magnentius, a pair of usurpers who had led uprisings against his rule in his absence. Magnentius, a barbarian-born officer in the Roman army, had killed Constantius’ brother and co-emperor Constans in his bid to seize power.

Eight years later, as Ursicinus was on his way home to Italy to accept promotion to the post of Rome’s Master of Infantry, having handed over command in the East to his successor Sabinianus, King Shapur launched his latest initiative against Rome. For by that time, the Persian ruler had made his regional enemies his allies, and had prepared and trained a vast army for the new enterprise. Shapur also knew that Ursicinus had departed, and that Constantius and much of the Roman army were tied up in a bitter campaign in Illyricum against Sarmatian, Quadi and Suebi invaders from beyond the Danube.

Shapur had begun by writing to Constantius to demand all territory held by Rome in the East as far as Macedonia, which he claimed was historically the property of Persia. Constantius had declined to oblige. Suspecting that Shapur was intending to launch a new campaign, Constantius had sent a message to Ursicinus ordering the general to turn around and go back to the East to counter whatever Shapur attempted.

Ursicinus, on his way to Italy, had just arrived in Thrace when the emperor’s dispatch reached him. Ammianus had been with his general when he opened his orders, and he saw that Ursicinus had been deeply troubled by them. The emperor was leaving Sabinianus in overall command in the East, so, technically, Ursicinus would be answerable to him. Neither was the emperor permitting Ursicinus to take any troops apart from his bodyguard to the East with him. Ursicinus knew that these orders had been framed by his enemies at court; he was, it seemed, being set up to fail.

Nothing is known about Ursicinus’ background. Many senior Roman commanders of this era had barbarian blood: Vandal, Frank and German. And there was a king of the Alemanni Germans named Ursicinus at this same time, so it is quite likely that Ursicinus was also of German extraction. He had clearly shown great military skill over the past decade, but at the same time had made many enemies at the court of Constantius. Yet he had never wavered in his loyalty to the emperor. “The most valiant of men,” in the opinion of his aide Ammianus, Ursicinus could not disobey his emperor, and neither could he allow Shapur to go unchecked. Taking Ammianus and the remainder of his staff and his escort from the Household Protectors with him, the general reversed his course and hurried back to Syria. [Ibid.,
XVIII
, 5, 4]

Over the winter of
AD
358–359, as Ursicinus and Ammianus were returning east, a Roman official by the name of Antoninus had crossed the Tigris river in the dead of night in a Persian fishing boat. With the help of the Persian governor on the eastern
bank, Antoninus took his entire family with him, and was conducted to the winter quarters of King Shapur.

Antoninus was a former wealthy merchant who served on the staff of Rome’s Duke of Mesopotamia. A financial scandal had erupted in the province, implicating Antoninus. When Ursicinus had been in charge in the East he had been sympathetic to Antoninus’ plea of innocence, but Ursicinus’ successor Sabinianus had ignored Antoninus’ appeals that other, much more powerful men were responsible for the fraud, and had laid down a date by which he must personally repay the missing money. As that date approached, Antoninus had determined to have his revenge. After making careful note of all the Roman military dispositions throughout the region, he had defected to the Persians.

Serving as an adviser to King Shapur, the defector Antoninus was riding with the Persian army as the two Roman officers watched from their hilltop observation post. Antoninus had been welcomed by the Persian king and given a turban that denoted him as a satrap entitled to vote with the king’s other advisers. The Roman defector had urged Shapur to forget his old policy of reducing Roman strongholds one at a time. Instead, Antoninus had said, producing the details of the location of Roman units and arsenals, the Persians should drive to the Euphrates river, cross it to the west, and then push up through Roman provinces all the way to the west coast of Asia before the Romans had time to organize. It was a plan that Shapur had enthusiastically endorsed.

Once the Persian army had passed, Ammianus and his centurion companion came down off their hill and trailed the enemy at a safe distance as the Persian horde followed the Tigris river. The two Romans were able to observe the Persian king and his adherents sacrificing in the middle of a bridge of boats across the Anzaba river (today’s Greater Zab in northern Iraq), with their army formed up beyond the river. There were shouts of joy from those on the bridge, indicating that the priests had found the omens auspicious for a campaign against the Romans, and the Persians had commenced to traverse the bridge. Estimating that it would take at least three days for the entire Persian army to cross the river, Ammianus and the centurion slipped away. [Ibid., 7, 1]

Crossing the mountains, “deserted and solitary places,” Ammianus returned to his general. Ursicinus had made his headquarters in southern Armenia, at the city of Amida (modern-day Diyarbakir in Turkey), on the western bank of the Tigris, where
seven legions had gathered. [Ibid., 7, 2] The count listened to Ammianus’ report, and considered the situation. Sabinianus, the official Roman commander in the East, was at Edessa in Osroene, to the west, near the Euphrates, with another large body of Roman troops.

Sabinianus, “a cultivated man” and “well to do” despite an obscure family background, was nonetheless “unfit for war” and “inefficient,” in Ammianus’ opinion. With Sabinianus showing no interest in leading his troops to intercept the Persians before they reached the Euphrates, Ursicinus sent couriers galloping across the Roman province of Mesopotamia with orders for the governor and for the province’s military commander. [Ibid.,
XVIII
, 5, 5]

In response to the general’s orders, Roman troops were soon compelling Mesopotamian farmers and their families to move with their flocks to safer quarters to the west. At the same time, the city of Carrhae was totally evacuated, for it was only surrounded by weak fortifications and could not be successfully defended. Then, also on Ursicinus’ orders, Roman troops set fire to all the farmland of the province, to deny grain and fodder to the advancing Persians. The flames swept across the plain, and mile after mile of yellowing corn that was almost ready for harvesting was consumed,
as were many wild animals including lions, as Mesopotamia was blackened from the Tigris to the Euphrates. As the plains burned, Roman troops erected fortifications at potential crossing places along the eastern bank of the Euphrates. [Ibid., 7, 3–4]

Bypassing the Roman-held city of Nineveh, the Persian army continued west toward Edessa. But then, at the village of Bebase, a scout arrived with the news that the past winter’s melting snows had flooded the Euphrates, making it impassable for the time being. On the advice of the defector Antoninus, the Persian army now turned sharply right and marched north, to attack Amida. At Amida, Ursicinus was preparing to pull out. Believing that Shapur was still pushing on toward the Euphrates, the Roman general had decided to hurry west, cross the Euphrates at Samosata in Commagene, and then move down the river and destroy the bridges at Capersana and Zeugma in Syria to deny the Persians an easy Euphrates crossing.

On the road to Amida, guided by Antoninus, an advance force of 20,000 cavalrymen under the Persian generals Tamsapor and Nohodares galloped ahead of the main Persian army. Two Roman cavalry wings recently arrived from Illyricum had been stationed on the approaches to Amida to guard against just such a surprise attack. Come nightfall, the 700 Roman troopers of the two wings withdrew from the public roads they were supposed to be watching and were soon “overcome with wine and sleep.” In the darkness, the Persian advance force slipped by. Come daylight, the Persian commanders had hidden their men and horses behind sand dunes outside Amida. [Ibid., 8, 3]

This was the summer’s day on which Ursicinus set off for Samosata, leaving his departure until late in the afternoon so that he rode through the cool of the night. As twilight was falling, the Roman general and his staff and escort of both infantry and cavalry had not gone far from Amida before, as they topped a rise, they saw the “gleam of shining arms” in the distance, as the Persian cavalry force made its appearance. “An excited cry was raised that the enemy were upon us,” said Ammianus, who was riding with his general. Ursicinus’ standard was raised, and the small Roman force concentrated in close order. [Ibid., 8, 4–5]

As Persian light cavalry came up at the gallop, “some of our men rashly ran forward, and were killed” by the arrows of the Persians. When both sides pressed forward, Ursicinus recognized Antoninus leading the enemy force, and yelled that he was a traitor and a criminal. Antoninus, removing the turban that the Persian king had presented him, sprang from his horse.

Antoninus, bowing before Ursicinus, called to him, “Pardon me, most illustrious Count. It is through necessity and not voluntarily that I have had to descend to this conduct, which I know is iniquitous. As you know, it was the unjust demands of scoundrels that drove me to it. Not even you, with your high position, could protect me from their avarice.” With that, Antoninus withdrew, respectfully walking backward, until he had disappeared into the descending night. [Ibid., 8, 6]