02-26-2013, 12:17 AM
Yes, I agree. I think the key determinant is the siege vessels. Julian states that Nisibis was under siege for 4 months in the second Oration to Constantius.
The first Oration to Constantius is equally lurid in its details but omits, I think the time-frame:
They began the siege and completely surrounded the city with dykes, and then the river Mygdonius flowed in and flooded the ground about the walls, as they say the Nile floods Egypt. The siege-engines were brought up against the ramparts on boats, and their plan was that one force should sail to attack the walls while the other kept shooting on the city's defenders from the mounds. But the garrison made a stout defence of the city from the walls. The whole place was filled with corpses, wreckage, armour, and missiles, of which some were just sinking, while others, after sinking from the violence of the first shock, floated on the waters. A vast number of barbarian shields and also ship's benches, as a result of the collisions of the siege-engines on the ships, drifted on the surface. The mass of floating weapons almost covered the whole surface between the wall and the mounds. The lake was turned to gore, and all about the walls echoed the groans of the barbarians, slaying not, but being slain in manifold ways and by all manner of wounds.
(composed around 355 AD and available here)
The two key issues is how extant were these dykes/dams/tumuli, etc - and regardless of their circumference, could Shapur build and utilise floating siege weapons?
Julian's account stresses that the damns broke suddenly at a full-tide as if by accident whereas it would seem more probable that Shapur designed the damns to break specifically at a full-tide. I am very ignorant about river mechanics but wonder if the four month period represented how long it took for a sufficient dam of water to build up about Nisibis (or part of it) sufficient to be released and batter the walls? Shapur has his engineers utilise the waiting time to harass the walls and undermine them with rafts and barges/boats as nothing more than preparation for the release. Julian has turned a long preparatory phase into a key dramatic one thus skewering how we read the siege narrative.
In this version then the rafts are perhaps not very numerous - built using locally sourced woods, etc. Forty days is enough time to assemble and build prefabricated vessels often brought along by a siege army to ford rivers. And we know the Sassanians had skilled siege engineers and artificers. While as a writer I adore the tableau vivant of a 'floating city' under siege from boats and of heroic Roman defenders overcoming them as per above, I feel as a realist like you that this is again a moment elevated beyond its truth into rhetoric.
The first Oration to Constantius is equally lurid in its details but omits, I think the time-frame:
They began the siege and completely surrounded the city with dykes, and then the river Mygdonius flowed in and flooded the ground about the walls, as they say the Nile floods Egypt. The siege-engines were brought up against the ramparts on boats, and their plan was that one force should sail to attack the walls while the other kept shooting on the city's defenders from the mounds. But the garrison made a stout defence of the city from the walls. The whole place was filled with corpses, wreckage, armour, and missiles, of which some were just sinking, while others, after sinking from the violence of the first shock, floated on the waters. A vast number of barbarian shields and also ship's benches, as a result of the collisions of the siege-engines on the ships, drifted on the surface. The mass of floating weapons almost covered the whole surface between the wall and the mounds. The lake was turned to gore, and all about the walls echoed the groans of the barbarians, slaying not, but being slain in manifold ways and by all manner of wounds.
(composed around 355 AD and available here)
The two key issues is how extant were these dykes/dams/tumuli, etc - and regardless of their circumference, could Shapur build and utilise floating siege weapons?
Julian's account stresses that the damns broke suddenly at a full-tide as if by accident whereas it would seem more probable that Shapur designed the damns to break specifically at a full-tide. I am very ignorant about river mechanics but wonder if the four month period represented how long it took for a sufficient dam of water to build up about Nisibis (or part of it) sufficient to be released and batter the walls? Shapur has his engineers utilise the waiting time to harass the walls and undermine them with rafts and barges/boats as nothing more than preparation for the release. Julian has turned a long preparatory phase into a key dramatic one thus skewering how we read the siege narrative.
In this version then the rafts are perhaps not very numerous - built using locally sourced woods, etc. Forty days is enough time to assemble and build prefabricated vessels often brought along by a siege army to ford rivers. And we know the Sassanians had skilled siege engineers and artificers. While as a writer I adore the tableau vivant of a 'floating city' under siege from boats and of heroic Roman defenders overcoming them as per above, I feel as a realist like you that this is again a moment elevated beyond its truth into rhetoric.
Francis Hagan
The Barcarii
The Barcarii
