02-23-2013, 02:48 AM
Quote:If this is true and Heliodorus borrowed from both Julian and Ephraim then it follows that Heliodorus wrote after the publication of Julian’s Oration to Constantius. It might follow then that the unknown author of the Historia Augusta in describing Aurelian’s triumph borrowed from Heliodorus as an homage to a writer who had recently revived a literary genre.
So we now have three works: Ephraim's Nisibene Hymns, Julian's Oration to Constantius and Heliodorus' Aethiopica, all referring to a siege using waterworks and all somehow related to each other, with a further relation to the Historia Augusta!
The Nisibene Hymns are available online HERE (Hymn I, with II and III on following pages).
It's difficult to draw much from such poetic and metaphoric language, but luckily we have several other accounts of the Nisibis siege to supply additional details. Julian's is the most obvious (describing the third siege, of 350, as Ephraim apparently does here).
Theodoret provides two accounts of the besieged Nisibis and Shapur's aquatic attack on the walls (available online in an excerpt from Dodgeon & Lieu's Roman Eastern Frontier...). However, Theodoret is here describing the first siege, of c.337. In his account there is no mention of ships or lakes; Shapur used the dammed river as a 'battering ram' to bring down the city wall. Michael the Syrian's Chronicon (Dodgeon p.150, as above link) agrees that this floodwater attack happened during the first siege, but adds Ephraim as a disciple of the principal defender, Bishop Iacob.
This is tricky, as Ephraim himself was apparently present at all three sieges. His Nisibene Hymns refer several times to the three 'breaches', relating them to the trinity (the neatness of this comparison might make it suspect...). However, neither Ephraim himself nor any other account of the first or third siege mentions a lake surrounding the city or ships launched against the walls (as far as I know - my notes from Dodgeon & Lieu are very scrappy though, and if anyone has a copy of the book it might be worth checking!)
The Introduction to the Nisibene Hymns by John Gwynn dismisses the date confusion by dismissing Theodoret and insisting that the river attack happened during the third siege only. Gwynn does this by referring to Julian's oration for supporting evidence. But Julian's oration seems to expand considerably on what any of the other commentators describe, adding ships and lakes and so on. It's almost as if Julian is taking Ephraim's metaphors about the Ark and the waves and turning them into reality...
So what really happened, at either the first or third (or both) sieges of Nisibis? A map of the ancient city would help, but I've never seen one. Google's Satellite View of Nusaybin gives an idea of the current orientation of city and river. The ancient centre was presumably somewhere in the vicinity of the surviving church of Mar Iacob (Mor Iacub Kilisesi), although I read somewhere (Philip Parker's The Empire Stops Here, I think) that the remains of the Roman forum were until recently still visible in the no-man's-land between the Syrian and Turkish border defences.
Either way, the Mygdonius appears to flow close to where the eastern walls would have been. It's a small river, and the area of the ancient centre appears to be on higher ground (Nisibis is possibly related to a Syriac word meaning 'set upon' - or at least Ephraim seems to pun on the connection).
So, could Shapur really have dammed such a narrow deep-flowing river enough to create a lake around the whole city? It seems very unlikely. Far more likely is the idea, suggested by Theodoret, that the Persian plan involved damming the river until a large body of water had built up then releasing it against the eastern wall of the city (presumably this wall stood above the riverbank?). Whether that plan would work on a practical level is another question. But it seems a lot more plausible than trying to create a huge dyke around the city and flooding the whole thing...
And the ships? As I say, I don't think any other source mentions them. In fact, the earlier accounts by Theodoret and Michael explicitly state that Shapur waited for the waters to recede before attacking the collapsed wall. Did Julian invent the ships?
It seems, I suppose, that Heliodorus must have drawn his idea from Julian after all. But Julian's account of the Nisibis siege may itself be a fictionalised dramatisation of what actually happened (maybe itself drawing on some other source?), either in 337 or 350...
Nathan Ross
