The nature, location, and economic impact of the Roman eastern frontier changed during the later empire. At the beginning of our period, Diocletian and the tetrarchs created an elaborate defensive system in the Near East which was typical of the early empire. Garrisons were stationed in Mesopotamia at Singara and Nisibis, on the middle Euphrates at Sura and at Circesium, along a frontier road, known as the Strata Diocletiana, which ran southwest from Sura to Damascus,40 And from the city of Bostra through the oasis of Azraq to Dumatha in the Wadi Sirhan. The forts and milestones of the frontier were marked by grandiose Latin inscriptions dedicated by soldiers and army officers to Diocletian and his colleagues.41
Writing in the 520s, Malalas attributed to Diocletian the essential elements of the organization of Roman defense in Syria that was familiar in his own day:
Diocletian also built fortresses on the limes from Egypt to the Persian borders, and stationed limitanei and duces for each province, to be stationed further back from the fortresses with a large force to ensure their security. (Malalas 308, trans. Jeffreys and Scott)
Soon after this date Procopius records warfare between the two Saracen confederations of the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids over an area called Strata, which was surely the former frontier road built by Diocletian (Procopius, Bell. Pers. 2.1.6-7). Nevertheless, the organization of the defense of the region changed significantly between the end of the third and the sixth century. Responsibility was shared between a settled militia of limitanei and friendly tribes acting as Roman clients. By the end of the fourth century archaeology suggests that the forts along the steppic frontier southwest of the Euphrates were hardly manned by regular troops, although some reinforcement occurred during the early sixth century as open warfare was resumed against the Sas-sanian Empire.42
Justinian entrusted responsibility for the defense of the northeastern frontier to a magister militum per Armeniam. Procopius records the measures which he applied in the mountainous hinterland of Trabzon, occupied by the Tzani; an account which has been counted as “the best description we have of what the arrival of Roman imperialism looked like on the ground for any moment in Roman history.”43
Tzanica was a very inaccessible country and altogether impossible for horses, being shut in on all sides by cliffs and for the most part by forests, as I have said. . . Accordingly he cut down all the trees by which the routes chanced to be obstructed, and transforming the rough places and making them smooth and passable for horses he brought it about that they mingled with other peoples. . . After this he built a church for them in a place called Schmalinichon, and caused them to conduct services and to partake of the sacraments and propitiate God with prayers and perform other acts of worship, so that they should know that they were human beings. And he built forts in all parts of the land, assigned to them very strong garrisons of Roman soldiers and gave the Tzani untrammelled intercourse with other peoples. (Procopius, Buildings 3.6.9-13)
Procopius follows this general account with specific details of the deployment of troops under duces and fort building at Horonon, Charton, Barchon, Sisilis-son, Bourgousnoes, Schamalichon, and Tzanzacon. All of these are unfortunately unlocalized, although Procopius’ description makes it clear that some of them had already served as locations for earlier Roman garrison positions.
The main northern stronghold of western Armenia, and the headquarters of the magister militum, was Theodosiopolis (modern Erzurum), originally a hilltop fortress built by Theodosius II, but expanded by Anastasius into a city with a lengthy circuit wall.44 This, like the construction of Dara (see pp. 371-2) was a response to the invasion of Kavad in 502, when the place had fallen to the Persians without resistance. Justinian is said to have built churches and monasteries (Procopius, Buildings 3.4.12-14), strengthened the fortifications, and made the city the headquarters of his general of the two Armenias (Procopius, Buildings 3.5.1-12). The fortresses of Pheison and Citharizon respectively guarded the routes between Persian Armenia and the districts of Sophanene and Arzanene (Procopius, Buildings 3.3.1-8). Citharizon, in a strategic position southeast of modern Bingol, was the more important site and the headquarters of one of the two Roman field commanders in the region.45
Substantially more can be reconstructed from the history of Martyropolis-Maifaraqqin (modern Silvan). The city occupied a liminal position between the Roman Empire and the Persians, and controlled the southern access to the Bitlis pass, the only practicable route from Mesopotamia into highland Armenia around Lake Van.46 The activities of Marutha, bishop of Martyropolis between 380 and 408, illustrate the cultural and religious interchange which became possible in the atmosphere of detente between Rome and Persia in the early
Plate 10.3 The fortifications of Dara in Mesopotamia (Nihat Erdogan, Mardin Museum)
Fifth century.47 When Martyropolis surrendered without resistance to the Persian invasion led by Kavad in 502, its citizens were able to preserve themselves from reprisals or deportation by returning to the king a gold chalice which had been presented to Marutha by Kavad’s grandfather, Yazdgird I, and presenting him with two years’ worth of taxation. Anastasius is said to have acquiesced when the Roman satrap of Sophanene, Theodorus, based at Martyropolis, was issued with his tokens of office by the Persians, since he thought that the city was indefensible. Justinian took a more robust approach and rebuilt the city walls (Procopius, Buildings 3.2.2-14).
Dara is the best studied of the eastern frontier positions (Plate 10.3). Anastasius took the decision to convert this frontier village, a day’s journey northwest of Nisibis, into a fortified city in 505 and it took his name, Anastasiupolis (see p. 132). The sources for the foundation of Dara include two invaluable Syriac accounts, the near-contemporary Chronicle of Ps-Joshua, and an extended chapter of Ps-Zachariah’s history. The latter, clearly drawing on a very well-informed source, shows that a discussion between Anastasius and his generals after the loss to the Sassanians and recovery of Amida (modern Diyarbakir) in 504 led to the decision to fortify this advanced position, barely ten kilometers from the frontier. The specific objective was to enable the recapture of Nisibis. The generals argued that:
It was not easy. . . to capture Nisibis, because they had no siege works ready or a place of refuge for rest, because the fortresses were remotely located and were too small to receive the army, and the water and food supplies that were in them were not adequate. (Ps-Zachariah, Chron. 7.6a, trans. Phenix and Horn)
The task of converting the village of Dara into a new fortified garrison town was entrusted to Thomas, the bishop of Amida. Imperial funds underwrote generous pay rates for skilled builders and craftsmen from the entire region, supervised by a team of the bishop’s dependents drawn from the clergy of Amida. Indeed, as much attention was given to building churches as secular buildings which included fortifications, an aqueduct, a large bath house, cisterns, and granaries. The Sassanians objected to the project, which breached the terms of the treaty of 363, but their king Kavad, preoccupied by threats from the Caucasus and from the Huns on his steppic northern frontier, was powerless to intervene. Dara-Anastasiupolis henceforward became the key Roman frontier position in upper Mesopotamia.48 The invaluable contemporary witness of Ps-Joshua meanwhile shows that the fortification of Dara occurred in the context of other defensive building work along the Euphrates, largely organized and funded by local civic leaders:
The emperor gave orders that a wall should be built for the village of Dara, which is situated on the frontier. They selected workmen from Syria, and they went thither and were building it; and the Persians were sallying forth from Nisibis and forcing them to stop. (91) The excellent Sergius, bishop of Birta-Kastra, which is situated beside us on the river Euphrates, began likewise to build a wall at his town; and the emperor gave him no small sum of money for his expenses. The Magister also gave orders that a wall should be built at Europus, which is situated to the west of the river in the prefecture of Mabbug; and the people of the place worked at it as best they could. (Ps-Joshua, Chron. 90, trans. Wright)
Procopius’ lengthy account of Dara, which he knew from his service under Belisarius, exaggerates Justinian’s contribution at the expense of Anastasius’.49
This sixth-century frontier from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea differed radically from the early imperial limes along the upper Euphrates. The new strongholds of the late empire were strategically sited castles, designed to secure major routes (including access to the Black Sea) and to provide centers from which the region could be controlled. They could only be bypassed at the enemy’s peril, for they cut off an attacker’s lines of reinforcement, supply, and retreat. The warfare of the period between Romans and Persians did not involve pitched battles in the open plains, but assaults, sieges, and subversion aimed at securing these positions.
At a local level the late Roman frontier was porous and economic life in the frontier regions was typified by exchange and commerce, which often confiicted with imperial attempts to control cross-border traffic. This is well described by Procopius for the people of Chorzanene in the highlands of northeast Anatolia, south of Erzerum:
So the inhabitants of this region, whether subjects of the Romans or the Persians, have no fear of each other, nor do they give one another any occasion to apprehend and attack, but they even intermarry and hold a common market for their produce and together share the labours of farming. And if the commanders on either side ever make an expedition against the others, when they are ordered to do so by their rulers, they always find their neighbours unprotected. Their very populous towns are close to each other, yet from ancient times no stronghold existed on either side. (Procopius, Buildings 3.3.10-12, trans. Dewing)
This description shows local conditions in a zone where the imperial boundary cut through the region on an arbitrary basis, dividing peoples who had innumerable social, economic, and religious ties among themselves. In spite of this, the Romans and the Sassanians made a series of agreements that trade (see p. 141) between the two empires should be restricted to a small number of trading posts. In 408/9 a regulation was introduced, that all cross-border trade was to be restricted to the three cities of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Artaxata in Armenia, and Callinicum on the Euphrates (CJust. 4.63.4; the regulation was confirmed in 422, CJust. 4.63.6). These constraints on free trade remained in force through the fifth and sixth centuries, since the fully preserved treaty of 562 between Khusro I and Justinian states simply that Roman and Persian merchants of any sort should conduct their business in accordance with the old regulations at the established customs stations (Menander Protector fr. 6; see p. 433). Procopius indicates that in the mid-sixth century the northern emporium for this long distance trade between the Roman Empire and the Far East was no longer Artaxata, but the nearby bishopric of Dubios (Dwin), eight days journey east of Theodosiopolis:
In that region there are plains suitable for riding, and many very populous villages are situated in close proximity to one another, and numerous merchants conduct their business in them. For from India and the neighbouring regions of Iberia and some of those under the Roman sway they bring in merchandise and carry on their dealings with each other there. (Procopius, Bell. Pers. 2.25.2-3)
Tolls of 25 percent were imposed on imports to the Roman Empire from the East. It is clear that the merchandise involved in these transactions were not everyday goods but the luxuries of the East - precious metals, gems, spices, and silk. It had never been an economic proposition to transport low-value goods across the vast overland distances of these Asian routes. Conversely neither Rome nor Persia had the ability to prevent localized exchange in everyday goods across the imperial boundary. There is thus no contradiction between a state policy of restricted trade and free commerce throughout the border region.
Roman interest in access to eastern luxuries is most dramatically illustrated by the history of the silk trade. Silk was produced in a region called Serinda, to be identified with southern China, and traded both overland and by sea, through numerous intermediaries, to the West. All routes passed through the
Sassanian Empire and were accordingly liable to heavy levies which were charged before they reached the Roman West. Justinian’s interest in southern Arabia in 529 was aimed at restricting the Sassanian stranglehold on this trade (see above, chapter 4). Eventually the secret of silk production was cracked. In 551 missionary monks, returning from India, are said to have discovered and explained to Justinian how silk was produced, and were sent back to collect silk worms so that they could be bred in Constantinople, thus avoiding the need to obtain silk, at huge price, which had passed through the hands of the Sassanians (Procopius, Bell. 8.17.1-8).
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