24.8 THE WAR BETWEEN NARSĒ AND DIOCLETIAN AND THE FIRST PEACE TREATY OF NISIBIS.
The chronology of the war between Narsē and Diocletian is quite hazy, and scholars have proposed different timelines for it. In parallel to the first stage of the war there was also a huge revolt in Egypt that became tightly interwoven with the campaign. In my previous post I finished stating that Narsē attacked Tirdad in Armenia in 294-295 CE; that’s the chronology proposed by Ilkka Syvänne. But other historians like Stephen Williams (author of a biography of Diocletian) dated Narsē’s attack against Tirdad to the Fall of 296 CE. In any case, the
Georgian Chronicle states that the king of Iberia joined forces with Narsē to oust Tirdad from Armenia. The Armenian chronicle attributed to Faustus of Byzantium also supports this description of events; under this massive assault on two fronts Tirdad’s resistance was hopeless and could not have lasted long.
There are few fixed dates around which we can anchor the events chronologically. One of them is the publication of Diocletian’s tax reform edict in Egypt by its Prefect
Aristius Optatius in March 297 CE, and the other one is the signing of the First Peace of Nisibis during the initial months of 299 CE. This edict extended Diocletian’s sweeping reform of the entire empire’s administrative and territorial system into Egypt, which had a fiscal different that was different from any other part of the empire and was a relic from Ptolemaic times.
Twenty years earlier Egypt had not opposed much resistance to the Palmyrene invasion, and since then the imperial hold on Egypt had been experienced as both oppressive and uncertain. Taxes in kind had squeezed the villages mercilessly, while they suffered the added trouble of differential inflation: in 293 CE at Oxyrhynchus in the Fayum the price of a donkey or camel was 60 times what it had been in 250 CE, while an
artaba of wheat fetched only 12 times the old price. At the same time the central government, distracted by wars elsewhere, failed to provide security from desert raiders. During the period when the Mauri and Berber tribes were attacking the Roman settlements in North Africa, the Blemmyes were incessantly raiding the caravan routes from the Red Sea ports across the desert to Coptos on the Nile valley. Such cities depended on this trade to survive and pay their taxes, but were unable to prevent these raids, and received only occasional help from the Roman Prefect. Finally, in 293-95 CE Galerius seems to have mounted a successful military expedition against the Blemmyes, but it did not lighten the tax burden: rather, it added to it the cost of maintaining Galerius’
comitatus.
Aureus of Galerius as caesar. On the obverse, (Galerius) MAXIMIANUS NOB(ilissimus) CAES(ar). On the reverse, IOVI CONS(ervatori) CAES(aris), with a full bodied portrait of Jupiter.
It is difficult to say how far the Manichean influence was also working on the feelings of the Nile communities in the following tense years. There are intriguing fragments of letters from a certain
Paniskos, writing from Coptos in the Thebaid to his wife at Philadelphia in the Fayum to the north, who talks of gathering arms and equipment, and persuading others to come and join the company of the “Good Men”. As this was one of the names by which Manichaean Elects were called by their followers, some scholars think that perhaps Paniskos was a Manichean, but the evidence is inconclusive.
By this time Diocletian had begun his monumental reform of the Empire's tax system, and he now began to apply its procedures and rules to Egypt, which had always been an anomalous province fiscally, and even enjoyed its own independent coinage in parallel with Rome's. The old tax system (a relic from Ptolemaic times) deliberately favored the Greek urban gentry against the Egyptian peasantry; the former had a far lower poll tax and tax on their private lands, while the private lands of Alexandrians were not taxed at all. All these privileges were now to be abolished: the tax on each unit of land of whatever kind was to be assessed on the uniform, equal standard of its productive capacity alone (same as elsewhere in the empire). To accomplish this a new census of land and people was planned for all Egypt, to begin in 297 CE. In Williams’ view, this egalitarian measure should have been welcomed by the peasantry. But either it came too late, or they simply saw the census as a preliminary to yet more exactions. At any event it failed to counterbalance the already deep resentments of the Greek upper classes, especially the Alexandrians, who feared their city was to lose its special status of royal political capital, which it had enjoyed since the Ptolemies. Thus, according to Williams, March 297 CE would have been the date of the start of the Egyptian rebellion. But Ilkka Syvänne proposes another alternative: that the edict of March 297 CE was published to help calming down the heated situation in Egypt, and so it would have marked the end, rather than the beginning of the rebellion.
Gold medallion of Diocletian. On the obverse, DIOCLETIANVS P(ius) F(elix) AVG(ustus) COS VIII (i.e. "consul for the eight time"). On the reverse, FELICITAS TEMPORVM with Diocletian and Maximian offering a sacrifice to the gods.
For the reconstruction of the military events, I will follow Syvänne’s account, which is the most detailed one that I’ve been able to find. As I said before, in 293-95 CE, while Diocletian wrapped things up in the Balkans and embarked in his sweeping program of administrative reforms, Galerius was sent to upper Egypt to deal with the disturbances there, which included some sort of local rebellion caused (or helped) by raids of the Blemmyes, and perhaps also with some sort of involvement by the Axumite and Hymiarite kingdoms (which at this point in time were hostile to the Romans). While Galerius was busy in Egypt, in 294 CE Diocletian launched a large offensive against the Sarmatians in Pannonia which ended in a resounding victory (the four Tetrarchs took the title
Sarmaticus Maximus as a result). He later followed the Danube downstream and fought the Carpi; by late 295 CE he was in Nicomedia where he spent the winter. The following year saw heavy fighting in every border of the Roman empire. In Gaul, Constantius launched finally his naval assault against the
imperium Britanniarum of Allectus (Carausius’ successor), who was allied with the Franks and so the fighting extended to all the lower Rhenish border. Meanwhile Maximian travelled from Gaul to Spain, crossed the strait of Gibraltar to North Africa and fought there an extremely hard and costly campaign against the Berber tribal confederations of the Bavares, Quinquegentiani and Austuriani.
After defeating Tirdad and expelling him from Armenia in 294-95 CE, Narsē would have been ready to attack the latter’s Roman allies. Consequently, in 295 CE Galerius would have travelled in haste from Egypt to Syria to oppose Narsē’s invasion of Roman territory. He scored an initial success against Narsē and all four Tetrarchs took the title
Persicus Maximus, but the situation in Egypt had not yet been fully pacified and Narsē was not about to give up. The Sasanian king renewed his offensive against Syria in the early summer of 296 CE and things started to go from bad to worse. According to Orosius (the only author who stated so, see below), Galerius, heavily outnumbered, fought two inconclusive battles, the first of which must refer to the year 295 CE and the latter to the early summer of 296 CE. According to Syvänne, after the second battle the Persians were able to push Galerius’ force aside and conquer some Roman fortresses, which in turn led Galerius to ask for help from Diocletian. Let’s see how the ancient sources describe the events that followed between the Romans and Narsē:
Aurelius Victor,
Liber de caesaribus:
In the meantime, after Jovius (i.e. Diocletian) had departed for Alexandria, the caesar Maximianus (i.e. Galerius) received his assignment to cross the borders, and advanced into Mesopotamia in order to stem the tide of the Persian advance. Gravely defeated by them at first (…)
Festus,
Breviarium rerum gestarum populi romani:
Maximianus caesar (i.e. Galerius), in the first engagement, having attacked vigorously an innumerable body of enemies with a handful of men, withdrew defeated, and Diocletian received him with such indignation that he had to run for a few miles before his carriage, garbed in his purple.
Flavius Eutropius,
Breviarium historiae romanae:
Galerius Maximianus in acting against Narses fought, on the first occasion, a battle far from successful, meeting him between Callinicum and Carrhae, and engaging in the combat rather with rashness than want of courage; for he contended with a small army against a very numerous enemy. Being in consequence defeated, and going to join Diocletian, he was received by him, when he met him on the road, with such extreme haughtiness, that he is said to have run by his chariot for several miles in his scarlet robes.
Ammianus Marcellinus,
Res gestae:
On one occasion in Syria, Galerius, clad in purple, had to march on foot for nearly a mile before the carriage of an enraged Augustus (i.e. Diocletian).
Orosius,
Adversus paganos:
Besides, Galerius Maximianus, after he had fought Narses in two battles, in a third battle somewhere between Callinicum and Carrhae, met Narses and was conquered, and after losing his troops fled to Diocletian. He was received by him very arrogantly, so that he is reported, though clad in purple, to have been made to run before his carriage, but he used this insult as whetstone to valor, as a result of which, after the rust of royal pride had rubbed off, he developed a sharpness of mind.
John Malalas,
Chronographia:
When the Persians again stirred up trouble, Diocletian took up arms and campaigned against them with Maximianus (i.e. Galerius). When they reached Antioch the Great, the same Diocletian sent Maximianus Caesar (i.e. Galerius) against the Persians and waited himself in Antioch.
Theophanes,
Chronicon:
In this year Maximianus Galerius was dispatched by Diocletian against Narses, the king of Persia, who at that time had overrun Syria and was ravaging it. Meeting him (i.e. Narsē) in battle, he (i.e. Galerius) lost the first encounter at the area of Callinicum and Carrhae. While withdrawing from battle, he met Diocletian riding in a chariot. He did not welcome the caesar (accompanied as he was by his own show of pomp) and left him alone to run along for a considerable distance and precede his chariot.
Zonaras,
Extracts of History:
(…) while this Narses was then ravaging Syria, Diocletian, while passing through Egypt against the Ethiopians, sent his own son-in-law Galerius Maximianus with enough strength to fight with him. He clashed with the Persians, was defeated and fled.
Syvänne’s version of the events is as follows: when Diocletian received news Galerius’ difficulties, he was still in the Balkans. Now he had no other choice than to march to Antioch, arriving there in late 296 CE. In Syvänne’s estimation, he probably brought with him five new legions (30,000 men) that would be subsequently garrisoned in the East. Diocletian then gave Galerius a force which he deemed large enough for the task at hand (according to Zonaras, because Festus and Eutropius wrote that Galerius was badly outnumbered). In the following spring of 297 CE Galerius advanced against the dreaded Iranian cavalry on the plain between Carrhae and Callinicum (the same place where Crassus and Valerian had been defeated) with predictable results. He suffered a humiliating defeat in which he appears to have lost most of his troops. Syvänne thinks that considering Diocletian’s reaction to the defeat Galerius had been probably in charge of a cavalry vanguard and had engaged the enemy prematurely without waiting for the arrival of Diocletian (hence Diocletian’s furious reaction). Whatever the cause of the defeat it is still clear in Syvänne’s opinion that the presence of Diocletian’s sizable
comitatus plus the reinforcements from the Balkans denied Narsē the possibility to exploit their victory and they retreated.
Part of the plain of Harran (ancient Carrhae) lies now in Turkey and has been turned into irrigated farmland using water from the Euphrates dams. This aerial photograph gives a good idea of the completely flat and open nature of this tract of land.
Diocletian was furious with the poor performance of Galerius and when the defeated commander came into his presence he made Galerius feel his displeasure in public by making the overly proud
caesar run on foot in front of Diocletian’s chariot. The public humiliation was meant to chastise the failed commander and make him the scapegoat. It was not Diocletian who had failed but his
caesar. Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning that Lactantius, who was the only author strictly contemporary to these events, wrote nothing of the sort, and that given his hatred for Diocletian and Galerius (the two great persecutors of Christians) he wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to further tarnished their reputation.
Gold dinar of Narsē.
Diocletian dispatched Galerius to the Balkans to gather a new army while he secured the borders. However, there followed another piece of bad news. Egypt had revolted again after troops had been transferred to Syria. If the tax edict of the Prefect of Egypt
Aristius Optatius is dated to March 296 CE as Williams and Barnes do, then it is possible that the cause of the revolt was the new uniform tax system introduced by Diocletian, but if it is to be dated to March 297 CE as Roger Rees does then the purpose of the new tax edict would have been to reconcile the locals to the government. The edict actually claims that it corrects injustice so it is possible that the revolt was just a continuation of the previous one of 293-95 CE. It is in fact probable that Galerius had failed to pacify Egypt before having to march to Syria in 295 CE. Revolts overthrew Roman authority almost everywhere: in the Thebaid, centered on the trading cities of Coptos and Ptolemais, in the Fayum and the Delta, at Busiris, Caranis, Theadelphia, and finally the great metropolis of Alexandria itself. The population rose, overpowered the Prefect and magistrates and what forces they had, and probably massacred them.
Consequently, when the military situation had stabilized with the onset of winter and the arrival of new reinforcements from the Danubian frontier, Diocletian marched to Egypt to crush the revolt. Two new legions,
Legio II Flavia Constantia, and
Legio III Diocletiana Thebaeorum are attested for the first time in 296 CE, but in Syvänne’s opinion it is likelier that these had already been created by Diocletian well before this for Galerius’ Egyptian campaign and that the legions just become visible in the historical record when they are garrisoned for the first time. Another possibility is that these were indeed created by Diocletian for his Egyptian campaign so that he would not have to withdraw any more troops from the eastern frontier than was necessary. It would have been wiser to take the new legions (probably formed with a core of veterans) against the Egyptian militias rather than use those against the dreaded Sasanians.
It should not come as a surprise that the senior
augustus chose to march with the bulk of the forces to Egypt at a time when Narsē held the upper hand. Romans emperors always saw usurpations as more serious threats than foreign invasions. Egyptian grain undoubtedly played its role too. Therefore, in practice, the division of the army meant that Galerius was once again left with too few men to deal with the Sasanians, but this time Galerius opted to engage the enemy through subterfuge. He did not have enough men to engage them in the open.
The Egyptian insurgents proclaimed allegiance to a new
augustus,
Lucius Domitius Domitianus. His coinage claimed imperial partnership with the Diocletian and Maximian, just as Carausius and Allectus had done at the other end of the empire in the
imperium Britanniarum. He also struck coins of the old Ptolemaic pattern which were popular among the Alexandrians, reasserting the essentially Hellenic character of his regime. Beyond this we nothing is known about Domitianus, but he seems in any case to have been largely a figurehead in the revolt. The real power was a character called Achilleus who took the title
corrector Aegypti and combined supreme civil and military power in his hands.
Silver argenteus of Domitius Domitianus. On the obverse, IMP(erator) C(aesar) L(ucius) DOMITIVS DOMITIANVS AVG(ustus). On the reverse, GENIVS POPVLI ROMANI.
Despite Galerius' defeat, the Sasanians had made only limited headway: their initial thrust had been blunted and fallen a long way short of taking Antioch. In the breathing space imposed by summer, Galerius strained all his resources to summoning and organizing a fresh army with troops withdrawn from the Danubian border, while Diocletian detached a proportion of the existing forces in the East and led them in rapid marches to Egypt. Some Roman forces still seem to have remained there, and with the arrival of the Emperor and a new army, the systematic isolation and reduction of the Thebaid and Fayum cities began. They were besieged and fell one by one during the autumn and early winter of 297 CE: Coptos sometime after September, Theadelphia in October, Caranis after November, Tebtunis after December. Diocletian had meanwhile begun the major task of besieging Alexandria itself.
Restitution of the Via Canopica (the main street) of ancient Alexandria looking west, by the French architect and archaeologist Jean-Claude Golvin.
The great metropolis of Egypt, second only to Rome in size among the cities of the empire, was well prepared for a siege: the inhabitants had all the resources for producing weapons and artillery to resist. Achilleus took command and dismissed all thoughts of surrender. Though Diocletian's forces were superior in open battle, he had been forced to divide them to sever communications and subdue the rest of the country and preferred a slow strangulation to a costly assault. He therefore invested Alexandria closely, cutting off the channel that brought fresh water from the Nile to feed the underground cisterns from which the Alexandrians got their drinking water.
Map of ancient Alexandria. Along its southern walls, you can see the Canal of Alexandria, that brought fresh water to the city from the Canopic branch of the Nile. This was the only source of drinkable water for the city.
The defenders held out with stubborn determination. Perhaps they hoped for relief from the Sasanians, if only in the form of a fresh campaign that might force Diocletian to lift the siege. One account suggests that Achilleus may have attempted to break out, unsuccessfully. At all events, no help came. Galerius was holding Syria and steadily strengthening his position, and meanwhile the revolt in the rest of Egypt was being stamped out. After an unexpectedly prolonged and dogged resistance of eight months, the exhausted Alexandrians finally capitulated in March of 298 CE. Diocletian, enraged by their treachery and the length of their defiance, and perhaps fearful for the future security of the East, was in no mood for clemency. A terrible example was to be made of the turbulent Alexandrians that would end their separatist yearnings for a long time to come: all those who had actively supported the rebellion were to be put to the sword. According to one story Diocletian, deaf to all pleas for mercy, vowed that the slaughter would not stop until the blood reached his horses' knees. But his horse unexpectedly collapsed so that its knees were on the ground: at this sign, he finally ordered a halt to the killing. According to Malalas, the wry humor of the Alexandrians later caused them to erect in gratitude a bronze statue of Diocletian's horse:
John Malalas,
Chronographia:
At that time, the Egyptians held a tyranny and slaughtered their leaders. Diocletian marched against them, and waged war in Alexandria. He besieged them and dug a trench around the city. He then cut off the aqueduct and diverted it away from Canopus, as it had been of some use to the city. When he took Alexandria, he set it ablaze. He came into it mounted on his horse, which trotted about on the corpses. He ordered one of his officers not to desist from slaughter until the blood of the slain reached the knee of the horse upon which he sat. It happened, in accordance with this order, that as he approached close to the gate, the horse upon which he was riding tripped over the corpse of a man and collapsing upon it had its knee covered in blood. This gave a pretense for indulgence, and the soldiers ceased killing the citizens of Alexandria. The Alexandrians erected a bronze statue to the horse out of gratitude. Up to this day, this spot is called the “Horse of Diocletian”.
Very few remains of classical Alexandria can be seen at street level today. One of them is the column known as "Pompey's pillar", which was actually a triumphal column raised in honor of Diocletian after his crushing of the Egyptian revolt. It stood within the precinct of the Serapeum, the most famed monument of the city.
Restitution of the Serapeum (with Diocletian's column) alongside the hippodrome of Alexandria (the Lageion) at the southwestern corner of ancient Alexandria by the French architect and archaeologist Jean-Claude Golvin.
In the rest of Egypt Roman authority was reasserted with an iron hand. According to Eusebius the cities of Coptos and Busiris, which had been at the center of the revolt, were destroyed in reprisal for their alleged treachery. Two new settlements in Upper Egypt were named Diocletianopolis and Maximianopolis, one of which was probably the former Coptos. The new tax laws and land census went ahead under the direct eye of the Emperor; Egypt lost its traditional right to a separate coinage and was administratively subdivided. Lower Egypt, the Delta and the Fayum, were formally separated from the new southern province of Thebaid, although a unified fiscal control was retained. As elsewhere in the Empire, civil and military lines of authority were completely separated.
But Syvänne points out that this was probably not the end of the Egyptian campaign. Zonaras and Aurelius Victor both claimed that Diocletian was fighting against the “Ethiopians” in Egypt when Narsē invaded Syria. So Syvänne thinks that Diocletian still needed to punish the allies of the rebels, the “Ethiopians” (that he views as Aksumites) and their clients the Blemmyes, and probably also the Himyarites (the kingdom of Hymiar was located in what’s today Yemen). The inclusion of the “Ethiopians” and “Indians” (probably a poetic license for the Himyarites, as both Hymiar and India lay beyond the Red Sea) as enemies in one of the
Panegyrici Latini (
Pan.Lat. 8.5.2) implies this in Syvänne’s opinion. To Syvänne, it’s probable that the Meroites were also clients of the Aksumites and thereby enemies of Rome, but this is not known with certainty. Diocletian’s solution to this problem showed once again his political skill. In 298 CE he concluded a treaty with the
Nobatae (the Nubians, another people who inhabited in what’s currently Sudan) against the Blemmyes, and then also another treaty with the Blemmyes. Both treaties included payments of money in return for peace. In addition to this, in return for their help, the Nobatae received the
Dodekaschoinos (south of Egypt) which was to serve as a buffer zone between Roman Egypt and the Blemmyes and Meroites, and their overlords the Aksumites. Diocletian’s decision to use the Nubians against the Blemmyes and Aksumites further undermined the relative position of the Kingdom of Meroe among the kingdoms of the area. Henceforth, the Meroites would be surrounded by the Nubians on three sides. If they were to survive, they needed help from their overlords, the Aksumites, who were not wholly friendly towards them either. Syvänne also suggests that he conclusion of the treaty with the Blemmyes in turn may have signified Roman support for the Blemmyes against the Aksumites with the result that the relative power of the latter diminished, but this is less certain because it is possible that the treaty could also have included the overlords of the Blemmyes (the Aksumites) as well.
In addition, Diocletian fortified and garrisoned the island of Philae close to the city of Elephantine and built temples and altars on it to serve as common places of worship for the Nobatae, Blemmyes and Romans. These sanctuaries remained in use until the reign of Justinian, who tore them down. In other words, Diocletian used religion successfully to connect the Roman and tribal interests in the area and thereby set a precedent for the Christian emperors to emulate.
The Gate of Diocletian at Philae in Upper Egypt.
The official attitude to the Manicheans underwent a change as a result of their perceived connections with the Sasanian empire and Diocletian’s suspicion about their involvement in the Egyptian revolt (Manicheans were particularly numerous in this country). The distinctive features of the religion (its closed communities, exclusiveness and hostility to Hellenic and Roman official gods), were now all seen in a highly suspicious light, as a subversive foreign influence which had to be eradicated. The radical change of policy from normal toleration to outright repression is expressed a few years later in Diocletian's ferocious instructions in a letter to
Iulianus, proconsul of Africa, concerning the Manicheans in his province:
We note that these men (…) have set up new and unheard-of sects in opposition to the old established creeds, with the intention of replacing what was formerly our divine heritage, by their own depraved doctrines. We learn that these men have only recently sprung up, and spread like unexpected portents from our enemy, the Persian nation, to our own part of the world, perpetrating outrages, disturbing the peace and causing the gravest harm to communities. We fear they may try, in the accursed manner of the Persians, to infect men of a more innocent nature among the tranquil and moderate Roman people, indeed infect the entire Empire with what can only be called their malevolent poison (…).
Therefore, we order that their founders and leaders be subject to most severe punishment: they are to be burnt in the flames, together with their abominable writings. Their followers, and especially the fanatics, shall suffer capital penalty and their goods confiscated to our treasury. And if any officials or persons of rank or distinction have gone over to some outlandish, disgraceful and infamous sect, especially this creed of the Persians, you shall confiscate their estates and deport the persons themselves to the Phaenensian or Proconnensian mines (…).
It is thought that this letter clarified a formal imperial edict against the Manicheans which scholars have dated to 302 CE, although the text of the edict itself has not survived. Though prompted by fear of the Sasanians, the persecution of the Manicheans may have played its part in the changing official attitude towards Christianity also, as the edict against the Christians followed only a year later.
Remains of a Roman aquesduct at Satala (modern Sadak, eastern Turkey).
In 298 CE Galerius decided to use the reinforcements, which included Gothic foederati cavalry (if Jordanes his right in his
Getica) that he had brought from the Danube frontier to make an invasion of the Armenian territory held by the Sasanians. Syvänne hypothesizes that it may actually have been Narsē’s plan to advance through Armenia to the legionary base of Satala in Cappadocia and from there either towards Syria or deeper into Asia Minor aiming at Nicomedia, because according to the Armenian chronicler Faustus of Byzantium (who misplaced the event by ca. 40–50 years) Narsē’s camp was at
Oschay in the district of
Basean, in the Armenian southwest near the modern Turkish city of Erzurum. This would mean that Galerius merely reacted to Narsē’s actions. What followed was the greatest victory ever achieved by the Romans against the Iranians since the rise of the House of Sāsān to the throne of Iran.
Galerius’ army was composed of first-class troops from the Danube, supported by Gothic and Sarmatian mercenaries (which were probably heavy cavalry lancers, helping the Romans balance the Sasanians’ cavalry advantage), and according to some sources amounted to 25,000 men. The growing success of the Tetrarchy's defense policies is demonstrated by the fact that such large forces could now be drawn off the Danube without sectors of that frontier giving way under renewed external pressure, as had happened so often before.
Mountain landscape near Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
View of the valley of the upper Aras river (ancient Araxes) in eastern Turkey.
This time the terrain favored Galerius as the Sasanian army avoided the open plains of Mesopotamia, so favorable to its cavalry, and moved north-east through the mountains of Armenia. Joined by Tirdad, Galerius was able to add to his strength with new Armenian forces, especially its famed cavalry. Taking full advantage of the terrain, his scouts carefully shadowed the unwieldy bulk of the Persian army as it moved through the valley of the upper Araxes river (modern Aras). Then, near modern Erzerum (and near the ancient city of Satala), he launched a surprise attack allegedly at dawn against the Sasanian camp, taking the enemy completely by surprise. It caused maximum confusion in the cramped Persian army, who were never able to construct their battle order. Tirdad’s horses dealt with the Sasanian cavalry, and Galerius turned the ensuing conflict into a bloody and absolutely crushing victory. The
šāhān šāh was wounded and barely escaped with a bodyguard, but all his tents, treasures, his accompanying family and harem were captured. The booty was so great that it became legendary. Its transport posed a respectable logistic problem, as the long processions of pack animals on the triumphal arch of Galerius at Salonica illustrate.
Depiction of the battle of Satala on the triumphal Arch of Galerius in Thessalonica.
Here was revenge at last for the humiliating captivity of a Roman Emperor thirty-five years earlier. Narsē fled Armenia into Media, perhaps in fear that the Romans could attempt to take over the central core of his empire in the Iranian plateau. Meanwhile, Galerius exploited his victory to the tilt and advanced from Armenia into Media Atropatene and then to Adiabene and defeated the Sasanians in two pitched battles after which he captured Nisibis before October 298 CE. Narsē had sent an envoy (
Affarbān the
Hazārbed) very soon after his disastrous defeat to negotiate the release of his family but had gotten a stern refusal. In response Galerius noted to Affarbān how Šābuhr I had treated Valerian and had then skinned and stuffed him for public display. The only ancient text that has survived describing this encounter and the later diplomatic negotiations that led to the First Peace of Nisibis is the VI century CE East Roman author (and imperial diplomat) Petrus Patricius. His full work has been lost, but these two fragments hace arrived to us preserved in quotations by later authors:
Apharban, who was particularly dear to Narses, king of Persia, was sent on an embassy and came before Galerius in supplication. When he had received license to speak, he said, “It is clear to the race of men that the Roman and Persian Empires are, as it were, two lamps; as with (two) eyes, each one should be adorned by the brightness of the other and not for ever be angry seeking the destruction of each other. For this is not considered virtue but rather levity or weakness. Because men think that later generations cannot help them, they are eager to destroy those who are opposed to them. However, it should not be thought that Narses is weaker than all the other kings; rather that Galerius so surpasses all other kings that to him alone does Narses himself justly yield and yet does not become lower than his forebears’ worth”. In addition to this, Apharban said that he had been commanded by Narses to entrust the rights of his Empire to the clemency of the Romans, since they were reasonable. For that reason, he did not bring the terms on which the treaty would be based but gave it all to the judgement of the Emperor. He (Narses) only begged that just (his) children and wives be returned to him, saying that through their return he would remain bound by acts of kindness rather than by arms. He could not give adequate thanks that those in captivity had not experienced any outrage there but had been treated in such a way as if they would soon be returned to their own rank. With this he brought to memory the changeable nature of human affairs.
Galerius seemed to grow angry at this, shaking his body. In reply he said that he did not deem the Persians very worthy to remind others of the variation in human affairs, since they themselves, when they got the opportunity, did not cease to impose misfortunes on men. “Indeed, you observed the rule of victory towards Valerian in a fine way, you who deceived him through stratagems and took him, and did not release him until his extreme old age and dishonorable death. Then, after his death, by some loathsome art you preserved his skin and brought an immortal outrage to the mortal body”. The Emperor went through these things and said that he was not moved by what the Persians suggested through the embassy, that one ought to consider human fortunes; indeed, it was more fitting to be moved to anger on this account, if one took notice of what the Persians had done. However, he followed the footsteps of his own forebears, whose custom it was to spare subjects but to wage war against those who opposed them; then he instructed the ambassador to make known to his own king the nobility and goodness of the Romans whose kindness he had put to the test, and that he should hope also that before long, by the resolve of the Emperor, they (i.e. the captives) would return to him.
When Diocletian returned from Egypt in the spring of 299 CE and met Galerius at Nisibis he took command of events and serious negotiations began. Diocletian sent his
Magister Memoriae (chief secretary)
Sicorius Probus to present the following terms to Narsē’s envoys:
- Persia was to hand over territory so that the Tigris was to be the border between the empires.
- Armenia was to become again a Roman protectorate and Tirdad was to be restored as the king of Greater Armenia.
- Iberia was to become a Roman protectorate and its king was to be nominated by Rome.
- Five Armenian satrapies on the eastern bank of the Tigris were to be handed over to the Romans; Tirdad was to be compensated at the expense of the Sasanians by annexing territory on his eastern border up to the fortress of Zintha in Media.
- Nisibis was to be the only place for commercial transactions (this limited the possibilities of spies posing as traders and secured the collection of customs duties).
The negotiations were conducted in somewhere in Media between Sicorius Probus (who kept in constant contact with Diocletian, who was at Nisibis with Galerius) and Narsē, with Affarbān the Hazārbed and
Burz-Šābuhr the
Hargbed (probably the same one as the
Šābuhr the
Hargbed listed in the Paikuli inscription) present in the meeting alongside the king. Again, a detailed account of these talks has been preserved in the work of Petrus Patricius:
Galerius and Diocletian met at Nisibis, where they took counsel and by common consent sent an ambassador to Persia, Sicorius Probus, an archival clerk. Narses received him cordially because of the hope inspired by the proclamation he made. Narses also contrived some delay. As if he wanted the envoys who came with Sicorius to recover from their weariness, he took Sicorius, who was not ignorant of what was happening, as far as near the Asproudas, a river of Media, until those who had been scattered around because of the war had assembled. Then, in the inner room of the palace, when he had sent out everyone else and required only the presence of Apharban as well as Archapet and Bar(a)sabor, of whom the one was praetorian prefect and the other was chief secretary, he ordered Probus to give an account of his embassy. The principal points of the embassy were these: that in the eastern region the Romans should have Intelene along with Sophene, and Arzanene along with Cordyene and Zabdicene, that the river Tigris should be the boundary between each state, that the fortress Zintha, which lies on the border of Media, should mark the edge of Armenia, that the king of Iberia should pay to the Romans the insignia of his kingdom and that the city of Nisibis, which lies on the Tigris, should be the place for transactions.
Narses heard these things and since the present fortune did not allow him to refuse any of them, he agreed to them all, except, in order not to seem to do everything under constraint, he refused only that Nisibis should be the place of transactions. Sicorius, however, said, “This point must be yielded. Moreover, the embassy has no power of its own and has received no instructions on this point from the emperors”. Therefore, when these things were agreed on, his wives and children were returned to Narses, for through the emperor’s love of honor, pure discretion had been maintained towards them.
The treaty of 299 CE, which was entirely Diocletian's work just as surely as the military victory was Galerius', was a piece of far-sighted construction centered in the interests of more economically defensible frontiers for the Roman East. The new frontier ran in a north-easterly wedge through Mesopotamia, from Singara across the Tigris to its apex near lake Van, then due west again, skirting the Armenian mountains in the North and the Syrian desert in the South. Tirdad of course was restored to Armenia. To provide the straight north-easterly line to lake Van, five small satrapies of Armenia were now annexed to Rome: Ingilene, Sophene, Arzanene, Zabdicene and Corduene. Armenia was well compensated at Persian expense by a large part of Media Atropatene. On the north-east flank of Armenia itself the Roman position was carefully buttressed by taking from Persia formal overlordship of the client state of Iberia in the Caucasus, and installing there a new king, Mirham. His function was to control the Caucasus passes for Rome, cutting off the Sasanians from contact with the “Scythians”, and close Asia Minor off to new migrations of Goths, whose movements towards the Caucasus Diocletian and Tirdad had been anxiously watching for some years.
In mere territorial terms Narses had come off lightly. But everywhere along his new, withdrawn western frontiers, points of vulnerability which might be profitably exploited by the Sasanians to encroach on the Roman East were all firmly closed. The peace of 299 CE was to last another forty years.
But it was not without very heavy Roman investment in security. Though Diocletian, like all Emperors before him, made maximum use of client kings to take over the costly burden of policing distant frontiers, his whole new line was heavily fortified according to the dictates of the terrain. From the lake Van highlands, south across the Tigris to the Jebel Sinjar ridge, to Circesium on the Euphrates, to Dura, Palmyra, Damascus and Bostra, new defensive works were created. To the other main support establishments for the army (garrison towns, mints, supply depots) Diocletian added the important features of central armament factories (
fabricae) at Edessa, Antioch, Damascus, Caesarea as well as Nicomedia. They were entirely under state control, managed along military lines and integrated into the overall army commands.
A hero's welcome was arranged for Galerius at Antioch. He was officially hailed in the panegyrics as “conqueror of Persia”, and commemorative medallion shows him on horseback crowned by Victory, charging a group of eastern foes. He perhaps expected the full ceremony of an individual triumph at Rome, and by all conventional standards his victory certainly merited it. If so he was disappointed, for when the triumph was finally celebrated at Rome, his eastern victory was swallowed in a huge combined festival to all the Tetrarchs, their victories and anniversaries, a few reliefs of which are still in the Roman Forum near the Arch of Septimius Severus.
Galerius rebuilt and embellished the city of Thessalonica (his main residence as a Tetrach) on a grandiose manner. The imperial complex that he built covered a qyuarter of the surface of the early IV century CE city, and included his mausoleum (the great domed building at the lower left side of the image) and his palace right next to the new and massive circus. Alongside the northern side of the palace ran a colonnaded street that was the new monumental entryway to the city, and in the middle of this colonnaded street stood the Arch of Galerius, built in the form of a tetrapylon. Under it stood the main ceremonial entry to the palace and circus, and opposite to this entrance, another colonnaded street led to his mausoleum.
Reconstruction of the Arch of Galerius on the colonnaded street, as it would have looked flike to someone entering the city. The palace and circus stood to the left.
Remains of the Arch of Galerius.
Reconstruction of the view of Galerius' mausoleum as seen from under the Arch of Galerius (standing right at the entry of the palace).
But at his own imperial residence of
Thessalonica (modern Salonica in northern Greece) he was accorded celebrations, and a triumphal arch built, which still stands today. The surviving reliefs tell the story of his victory and set it in the context of the Tetrarchy's special theology. Galerius is shown addressing his mail-clad cavalry troops in a mountainous region; in battle with elephants in the background; on horseback in the thick of the fighting, with Sasanian soldiers being slain and trampled all around; then receiving the surrender of a city; finally, dictating peace terms to the suppliant Narsē. The more damaged lower panels show Galerius in battle dress accompanied by Peace, sacrificing at an altar on which are reliefs of Jove and Hercules. Nearby stands Diocletian in a non-military cloak, graciously conceding that he is not the actual victor. He is, rather, the architect of order, accompanied by Jove whose universal rule is symbolized by a zodiac. Then on a base panel, the four Tetrarchs are surrounded by gods, the two central
augusti enthroned over a heavenly vault, with their
caesares standing to either side.
Relief from the Arch of Galerius, with Diocletian and Galerius offering a sacrifice. Galerius stands to the right of the image in full military gear while Diocletian stands to the left dressed in civilian clothes.
Narsē lived three years more after the signing of the First Peace of Nisibis, and after his death the Sasanian empire fell into a period of instability and internal turmoil that witnessed a comeback of the old habits of the
wuzurgān as it had happened in Arsacid times, with nobiliary revolts and dethronement and crowning of kings from the House of Sāsān by opposed nobiliary factions.
Ērānsahr would not get back from the internecine infighting until the young Šābuhr II came of age and reasserted royal authority with an iron hand.
For Diocletian, the new annexations and protectorates in the East were purely defensive measures which provided the Roman empire with buffer zones that protected the rich provinces of the Roman East in Anatolia, Syria and Egypt from further devastating Sasanian invasions. But the Iranians saw them in another light. For them, the client Roman kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia and the new Roman province of Mesopotamia (especially the five satrapies beyond the Tigris) were nothing more than a dagger permanently pointed to the throat of
Ērānsahr, as in them the Romans could assemble invasion armies and launch invasions against the Iranian empire from advantage points: control over upper Mesopotamia allowed the Romans to launch invasions against
Asorēstān and Ctesiphon from an alarmingly close departing point, and with two convenient invasion routes open to them (the Euphrates and Tigris valleys). But the Roman control over Armenia, Iberia and especially the five satrapies east of the Tigris was much worse, because they offered the Romans easy access to the passes across the Zagros and into Media and the Iranian plateau. No self-respecting
šāhān šāh could allow such a situation to exist for long, and so when Šābuhr II secured his personal rule over Ērānsahr, the next round of large-scale wars between the two empires began.
Because it does.
