Diyarbakir (Amida), AD 502-503

AD 502-503
The second siege of Amida came almost 150 years later. That century and a half had largely been a peaceful one. The Persians seemed satisfied with the new territory gained after Julian's death and contented themselves with only interfering in Armenia. This new found peace was aided by a series of crises that affected the Persian empire. This time it was their turn to come under barbarian attack, and a series of monarchs were defeated by the Hephthalites who invaded the eastern regions of the empire from their territory in modern Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The most disastrous campaign was that of Peroz. Defeated in one encounter he was forced to leave his young son Kavad as hostage with the Hephthalite king. Unwilling to let this humiliation go he broke his oath and returned to Hephthalite territory where at Herat he was tricked into leading a cavalry charge across concealed pits and killed along with most of his army. His son Balash was able to piece together a new government in Ctesiphon, but this brought him into conflict with his remaining brothers. Kavad, who had been released by this point, fled to the Hephthalites and was able to convince them to support him in his efforts to take the throne from his brother. With their army backing him seizing his kingdom was easy. While Peroz had maintained favorable relations with the Romans, who had even supported him in his campaigns against the nomads reasoning that they did after all threaten both sides (the Huns were considered the kin of the Hephthalites), Kavad with his huge debts to the Hephthalites found himself strongly in need of funds but with little use for the minimal Roman support or peace. And their lands were a rich and very tempting way to rebuild his kingdom's wealth.

Kavad's entry into the empire left a strong impression on the local inhabitants. After a century of peace they again found themselves subjected to one of the sudden and violent campaigns that were to so destabilize the east over the next century. A fortunate result of this is that we have rather a glut of sources covering this siege and the subsequent campaigns to recover it.

The most prominent and detailed of these sources is the chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite. This anonymous chronicle was written by an official in Edessa who witnessed much of the preparation for campaign and the siege of Edessa, although he did not directly participate in either the Roman siege of Amida or the field campaigns. His work deals entirely with this war and covers it in substantial detail. The chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah the Rhetor is another anonymous work and it provides some details left out of Pseudo-Joshua. Further details are filled in by Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, John of Ephesus and bits and pieces from other writers.

The most obvious thing people will notice about these sources is that they are all pseudo. This isn't as worrisome as it sounds and merely means that the author of the work is unknown. Most chroniclers at the time wrote anonymously, as can be seen from such works as the Anonymus Valesianus, Chronicon Paschale, or the surprising number of chronicles known simply by their date. Many of the pseudo- chronicles get their names from the work that they were later incorporated into (Zachariah Rhetor) or simply from the scribe who copied the work (Joshua the Stylite). It has been suggested that Pseudo-Joshua was actually Stratonicus, steward of the cathedral of Edessa, and while this is basically unsupported it does indicate the sort of background he was likely to have had. A more important (if less obvious) fact about these sources is that they are all Syriac. While later Greek sources, such as Procopius, do detail this campaign they do not do so in as great detail. We are left with the local Christian chronicles to tell us what happened.

Kavad's invasion started rather later in the year than most campaigns and this seems to have taken the Romans by surprise as they weren't expecting him until the following year. They had even sent  out an ambassador called Rufinus to pay Kavad in exchange for not attacking their territory. Rufinus stowed the gold in Caesarea as soon as he heard Kavad was in Roman territory, which turned out to be a smart move since Kavad had him seized as soon as he arrived in camp.

Descending south from Armenia Kavad encamped in front of Amida on October 5, 502. After years of peace there were no soldiers stationed on permanent duty in Amida and the defense of the city was left to the inhabitants themselves. They rose to the task admirably. Following the successful strategy from the last time the city had been taken he immediately ordered the construction of mounds against the walls. The area of wall chosen for this is not specified but I favor the northern section for reasons I'll get to later. The Romans countered this by increasing the height of their wall, but also secretly set about tunneling under the Persian mound. When the Persians reached the new section of wall they assaulted it with their battering rams and were able to take it down quite easily, but the weight of all those men was too much for the wooden beams which were all that held the mound up and the Persian siegeworks collapsed under them. All this happened within about a month.

Annoyed at this setback Kavad sent out the Lakhmid Arab king Na‘man to plunder the province of Mesopotamia. The limitanei divisions at Tella and Melitene raided the stragglers of this force but were caught out in the open and destroyed. Na‘man was now free to plunder as far as Carrhae and Edessa undisturbed. They continued their raiding throughout the month of November before returning to the Persian camp loaded with booty.

Kavad meanwhile ordered the collapsed mule filled in quickly. He was hampered in this by a large ballista that the Persians nicknamed "the Crusher" that could fire stones that weighed more than 300 pounds. This is the only mention of artillery in the entire siege and one wonders what had happened to the armory that Constantius had installed in the city? Regardless, this one ballista was apparently enough to make the Persians give up on their mound after two months of attempting to fill it.

By January the battle seemed to be over. Kavad had indeed grown weary of the fighting and offered to leave in exchange for gold. This sensible demand was rejected by the city council who instead demanded that Kavad repay the cost of their ruined crops. This understandably annoyed Kavad who was now in danger of disaster since he was in enemy territory in the middle of a wet Mesopotamian winter.

On the western side of the city there was a stretch of wall called the Tripyrgion. The word tripyrgion simply comes from the Greek words τρία (three) and πύργοι (towers), which implies that we should be looking for a section of three towers grouped together in a distinctive manner. The most plausible place for this is the section of wall surrounding what is now known as the Evil Beden Tower. This section of wall is isolated from the view of the rest of the wall since it juts out in a sharp point (this being the Evil Beden Tower). The two towers on either side can see the ground in front of the tower, but also block the view of other towers further along the wall. In short, it is a unit of three towers slightly isolated from the rest. Almost certainly this was the Tripyrgion.

This section of wall was manned by a group of monks from the monastery of St. John Urtāyē. This monastery was a famous local building founded in 388/389 by a pious Syrian monk. It grew from this first foundation of huts to a large community of 400 men living in an elaborate monastery just under the northern stretch of wall. The monks had been forced to abandon this building after Kavad's arrival and they sought shelter within the city walls. 100 monks fled at the Persians' arrival but there were still 300 left and this was more than enough to man a single tower. Those not on guard duty found themselves living in the dormitories at the school of Urtaye. As for the monastery itself, the building was broken up and used to construct the Persian mound, which is why I favor the northern wall as the focus of Kavad's attack.

Just under this tower was a drain, or possibly an aqueduct, that led outside the city. Using this drain a smuggler known as the Qutriga was able to sneak out and steal Persian supplies, no doubt selling them once he was back inside the city at a highly inflated price. Smuggling was and is a major problem in the region. Nowadays the rate to be smuggled across the Syrian border can be as little as 50 Turkish lira (about $18). Hopefully Qutriga was doing better given the danger he faced.

Unfortunately he was being watched by an observant Persian commander, who realized that what he lost in supplies was less important than the potential benefits that could arise from observing. Pseudo-Dionysius identifies this man as Kanarak the Lame, a marzbān of uncertain origin. Marzbān was the name for the Persian military governor, and unfortunately for us the Romans liked to give this title to basically any Persian official. They also had a nasty tendency to confuse names for titles as can be seen by the Persian general the Romans knew as Aspebetus which is simply spāhbed, the Persian word for general. In this case Kanarak the Lame was probably actually the kanārang, or marzbān of northeastern Iran.

To return to the siege, on 10th January the monks manning the tower got completely plastered. In Pseudo-Zachariah's lovely phrasing, "someone out of love gave hospitality to the monks who were guarding the Tripyrgion and wine flowed late into the evening." It was a rainy night and they had been celebrating a religious festival and besides had bought in to the apparently common feeling that the Persians had finally been fought off. Unfortunately for them when the Kanārang pursued the Qutriga back to his drain he noticed that there were no cries of alarm coming from the tower above. Realizing that the defenders were fast asleep he crept up through the tunnels with a select group of men and killed the monks in the tower. Letting down ladders the Persians were quickly able to capitalize on their advantage and by the time anyone realized what had happened they were in full command of that section of wall and reinforcements were arriving by the second. Governer Cyrus rushed from the citadel to see to the situation but he was wounded by an arrow and forced to retreat.

By this point a Persian victory was inevitable. Kavad watched from below as his men ascended the tower and worked their way into the city, threatening the timid with death and encouraging the brave. People ascending Evil Beden Tower would be almost impossible to attack from atop the walls and storming the tower was basically impossible. The battle was probably even easier than the sources make it seem. And thus the city fell in the 97th day of the siege (not 80th as recorded by Procopius). Kavad sacked the city and led the population into slavery, leaving behind only 3,000 men under the marzbān Glones. The slaughtered within the city (supposedly a ridiculous 80,000) were dragged out and dumped in a pile by the north gate (pictured above).

It can't have been too long after that rumor was spread about this victory. The head of the monastery of John Urtāyē was an elderly man from Persian territory called Abraham the Shepherd. Apparently Abraham survived the sack and lasted another twenty years to boot. Was it not possible that he had in fact arranged for events to transpire and betrayed the city to his countrymen? This possibility seems to have scandalized most of the chroniclers. Pseudo-Joshua in his otherwise detailed account doesn't even mention that the defenders were monks. Fortunately for his sensibilities stories of treachery are probably phony. One-third of the monks were killed in the sack, which hardly sounds like the reward of conspirators, and the stated explanation sounds plausible enough. After 96 days of constant stress a bit of heavy drinking must have sounded like a great idea.

Sources
The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, 50-56
The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Book 7a [25]
The Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, AG 814 (AD 502/3)
John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, p. 206-227
Procopius, The Persian Wars 1.7

There are a number of other worthwhile sites to see while in Diyarbakir, most of which I unfortunately did not have time to see. One exception was the Ten Arches Bridge (Ongözlü Köprü). Livius claims it's Roman and in fact identifies the builder as Bishop John Saoro at the end of the fifth century based on an inscription from Amida's Mountain Gate. Which is possible. A plaque at the site itself claims that it is the first Islamic bridge built in Anatolia and gives a date of 1065. Further "research" shows that it was built by Sancaroğlu Ubeydoğlu Yusuf and that this is stated in an inscription on the south side of the bridge. I don't know which of these to believe frankly. Undoubtedly Bishop John had a bridge constructed as stated and it was probably on this site, but whether it was completely built over or simply repaired I couldn't say. Certainly the inscription seemed to be on an integral part of the bridge suggesting that it was more than just a touch up. Probably the current bridge is a completely new (only 950 year old!) construction built on the same spot as a similar Roman one.

The area around the bridge is very nice. The Turkish government restored it in 2010 and shunted all traffic over to another bridge to the south so that it is now thoroughly pedestrianized. The land on the western side is taken up with two nice looking cafes and there is a walking path along the river. It was all completely deserted. I'm not sure why such a nice place was so completely empty (perhaps it's simply too far from the city) but I really hope that it gets some visitors. A nice park like that really shouldn't be allowed to fall apart.

There are also a number of nice mosques and churches in the city. Getting inside the churches is difficult as they are small congregations and not really designed for visitors so there's nobody at the door. The mosques are easier of access of course, but while I did run across a few of them I didn't really have time to explore. I was planning to focus on the interior of the city during the afternoon but I came down with a case of heat exhaustion from running up and down walls all morning (15 miles and 31 stories worth according to my iPhone) so I spent most of that time lying down on a coach with a wet washcloth over my head instead.

Still, while I didn't photograph it the center of the city was nice enough, if crowded. It's a good idea to stay on the main streets and avoid going too far down the scenic back alleys as they don't all remain scenic for long and can lead you into some decidedly sketchy areas, some with no exit. The east side of the city is shockingly rural. Walking around it feels as if you're just going through a big overgrown village. There are goats and chicken in the streets and everything.

Visiting south-eastern Turkey can be a little discomforting, even when the region isn't locked in some new conflict. The driving is lethal. Road rules such as stop signs are more suggestions. Every traffic situation is an opportunity to get ahead. Every drive a race. It's like they took the worst bits of driving in eastern Europe (the constant need to out-testicle your fellow drivers) with the worst bits of Middle Eastern driving (the reckless disregard for road safety) to create some new monstrosity. Worst drivers I've ever seen.

There is also a strong tendency for people to stare at you. Unless you're a person who can blend into the crowd you're going to draw a lot of attention to yourself. It made me quite uncomfortable, not the least of my reasons being that Diyarbakir has a reputation for being a little rough. There were one or two places where I beat a hasty retreat because I was getting undue attention and feared a mugging attempt. The Tigris Gate was one of those areas as one of the men from inside followed me out and sat against the rail staring at me. It was probably innocent but I felt quite exposed and retreated back inside. The walls have a particular reputation for theft and harassment which is one reason I did them quite early. The other reason of course being that they aren't as unbearably hot that way.

But honestly, on the whole the people were very friendly. And I was quite likely oversuspicious. One group of kids who'd been staring simply wanted to take a selfie with me. Apparently people of European descent are uncommon enough that it was worthy of commemoration. A merchant saw me collapsed under a tree and insisted I drink some bottled water. No charge. And the taxi drivers always smiled profusely and never overbilled. Having some experience with Jordanian taxi drivers that latter really surprised me. The beggars were uncomfortably pushy, but they never seemed threatening. Frankly, most of the people I interacted with were very nice and I just wished I had some way to communicate with them.

Nobody in the city speaks English, which was rather a surprise. I've never been anywhere where the people didn't understand at least a few words. But apparently Diyarbakir isn't much of a tourist destination for Europeans. The only obvious outsiders I saw while I was there were a trio of Chinese tourists looking at a map in the main square. I did discover a fair number of Turkish tourists over time, but they don't stand out quite the way I did and of course they speak the language. Anyone planning to visit the city should be prepared to do a lot of miming or else learn enough Turkish to get by. Actually, I'm not even sure it was Turkish or if they were speaking Kurdish since I can't tell those languages apart by sound. But they will at least understand Turkish.

 City Map

37°58′55″N 40°12′38″E