From Rome to Byzantium AD 363 to 565 by A. D. Lee

Author:A. D. Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Figure 12 View of the walls of Dara, northern Mesopotamia. © C. LillingtonMartin

On the twenty-sixth of this month [November 502], [the Lakhmid Arab ruler] Nu’man also arrived from the south and entered the territory of the Harranites. He ravaged and plundered it, and took away captive men, cattle and goods from the whole territory of the Harranites. He even came as far as Edessa, ravaging, plundering, and taking captive all the villages. The number of people whom he led away into captivity was 18,500, not counting those who were killed, and the cattle, goods and spoil of all kinds. The reason so many people were in the villages is that it was the vintage season, when not only the villagers, but also many Harranites and Edessenes, had gone out for the vintage and were thus taken captive. (Ps.-Joshua Stylites, Chron. 52 [tr. Trombley and Watt])

Meanwhile the inhabitants of a number of the towns of the region underwent the exigencies of siege, including the hardships of hunger, disease and, if these or Persian weapons did not kill them, enslavement and enforced emigration to Persia. Even those communities not besieged by the Persians found themselves having to billet Roman troops, which often proved to be as taxing an experience:

When those who came to our assistance ostensibly as saviours were going down and coming up, they looted us in a manner little short of enemies. They threw many poor people out of their beds and slept in them, leaving their owners to lie on the ground at a time of cold weather. They ejected others from their houses, going in and living in them. Others’ cattle they led away by force as if plundering an enemy. They stripped some people’s clothing off them and took it away. They used rough treatment on others for the sake of obtaining anything whatever. In the streets they denounced and insulted others for the smallest reason. They brazenly plundered the meagre provisions which everyone had … In full view of everyone they had their way over the women in the streets and houses. (Ps-Joshua Stylites, Chron. 86 [tr. Trombley and Watt])

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