Lee: War in Late Antiquity 0631229254_4_005 Final Proof page 137 19.4.2007 6:43pm Compositor Name: ARaju
THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR
was laid out on a Greco-Roman style, ‘‘Hippodamian,’’ rectangular grid, suggesting the involvement of Roman surveyors, and his palace there was decorated with mosaic pictures whose execution and style point strongly to their being the work of Roman craftsmen.26 The Persian practice of deportation appears to have been part of a conscious policy to supplement the kingdom’s workforce both numerically and in terms of skills (Lieu 1986; Morony 2004). Whether from motives of practicality or prestige, the Romans also sometimes deported the population of captured Persian cities and towns: both motives were evidently at work in Constantius II’s transfer of the inhabitants of an unnamed Persian city to Thrace, since they were expected to help with the cultivation of the region, but had also been paraded through the streets of Antioch en route (Libanius Orations 59.83–6). Julian sent prisoners from Anatha on the Euphrates in 363 to be settled at Chalcis in Syria (Ammianus 24.1.9), perhaps making up for some of the manpower lost to Persia in 359–60, and Maurice resettled thousands of prisoners from forts in Arzanene on vacant land in Cyprus in 578 (Theophylact Simocatta 3.15.13–15; John of Ephesus Church History 6.15; Evagrius Church History 5.19). This is perhaps the appropriate point to mention the rather unusual case of the resettlement of the Roman inhabitants of the Mesopotamian cities of Nisibis and Singara, who, by the terms of the peace settlement imposed by the Persians in 363, were obliged to vacate their cities before those were handed over to the Persians. Although he exploits the dramatic possibilities of the scenario to full effect, Ammianus’ description of the evacuation of Nisibis also provides a telling insight into the practical and emotional ramifications of this uprooting, which must also have been a part of the experience of those taken away as prisoners from captured cities in this period: The city was filled with lamentation and weeping, and throughout every part there was only the sound of everyone wailing. Women tore their hair at the thought of having to flee into exile from the homes in which they had been born and raised. Mothers who had lost their children or been widowed were driven away from the tombs of their loved ones, and the tearful crowd embraced the doorposts and thresholds of their homes as they wept. The different roads were filled as people scattered wherever they could. In their haste many people furtively took such of their goods as they thought they could carry, disregarding the rest of their property, however valuable and substantial, compelled to abandon it for lack of transport. (Ammianus 25.9.5–6)
Enslavement of urban civilians on a large scale was not confined to conflict with Persia. Despite their inexperience in waging siege warfare, a group referred to as the Borani crossed the Black Sea in the mid 250s and managed to capture the city of Trabzon on the northern coast of Anatolia – their success is attributed to the ‘‘laziness and drinking’’ of the city’s soldiers – where they found ‘‘an immense amount of money and great numbers 137