by Ian Ross
The chronology of the earlier stages of the Persian war is difficult to reconstruct; there may have been clashes in Armenia prior to 337. But the siege of Nisibis that immediately followed Constantine’s death seems to have been the official commencement of hostilities. There were two further sieges, in 346 and 350, and in each case the Persians were repelled. Most descriptions mention Shapur’s hydraulic works in connection with the third siege, but the Byzantine churchman Theodoret and several other writers clearly state that the Persians dammed the waters of the river and then released them ‘like a battering ram’ against the walls during the first siege of 337. It may be that they were mistaken, but I prefer to believe that Shapur could have attempted the strategy twice, hoping to improve with his second attempt on what had very nearly succeeded the first time around.
Bishop Iacob – or Mar Yakob, as he is known today – was one of the early saints of the Syriac church, and supposedly led the spiritual defence of Nisibis during the first siege. An ancient baptistery dedicated to him still stands in the Turkish town of Nusaybin. Most of what we know about the sieges themselves comes from Christian sources, principally the ‘Nisibene Hymns’ of Iacob’s disciple Ephraim. Their focus is mystical and religious; Ephraim says little about the military aspects, but implies that the city was saved by miracles brought about by the prayers of its Christian congregation and the piety of its successive bishops. We do know that it was a military commander named Lucilianus who repelled the Persian assault in 350, and quite probably other senior officers did the same in the first and second sieges. Their names are lost to history.
For obvious reasons, there has been very little archaeological exploration of the site of Nisibis, and the layout of the ancient city remains largely conjectural. My own reconstruction is based in part on Rocco Palermo’s 2014 paper from the Journal of Roman Archaeology, ‘Nisibis, Capital of the Province of Mesopotamia’. Visitors to the site in the early nineteenth century described the traces of walls still standing on the bluffs above the river, while the rest of the site was populated by ‘the black tents of the Koords’. Freya Stark’s Rome on the Euphrates was published in 1966, and while some of her conclusions may seem a little dated today her book remains a beautifully written account of the historical events, coupled with evocative literary sketches. She visited the site of Nisibis in a more tranquil time, and describes ‘the walls that are now a mere blur in the cultivation, far out beyond the shabby streets that cling there like limpets to the drowned… five columns alone remain standing as pedestals for storks’ nests where the fields have swallowed the vanished town.’
The battle of Narasara was one of Rome’s rare victories against the Persians, but it is mentioned only briefly in a single source; other than the death of Narses during the fighting, we know almost nothing about it – the date and location are entirely obscure. Dodgeon and Lieu’s The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (1991) is an invaluable compendium of original materials on the eastern campaigns of the era, while C. S. Lightfoot’s thesis ‘The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, with special reference to the reign of Constantius II’ (1982) gives a comprehensive survey of the military situation in the fourth century, backed by original research.
The events of AD 337 have been overshadowed in most historical literature by the death of Constantine himself. R. W. Burgess’s ‘Summer of Blood: the Great Massacre of 337 and the Promotion of the Sons of Constantine’ (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 2008) provides a very detailed examination of the situation surrounding the succession, and the best possible reconstruction of the chronology of the period. Study of the Sassanid Persians is hampered by a shortage of accessible written sources, but Touraj Daryaee’s Sasanian Persia, the Rise and Fall of an Empire (2007) contains a good summary in English of the evidence for their society and warfare. Matthew Canepa’s The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (2010) has a wealth of detail about court life, including the treatment of envoys.
For my speculative depiction of the desert tribes in this novel I have drawn on Irfan Shahid’s Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century (1984), among other sources. It does seem that the nomadic ‘Saracens’, as the Romans of the later period were beginning to call them, held women in comparatively high regard – the mid-fourth century Expositio Totius Mundi claims that ‘women are said to rule among them’ – and there is a surviving inscription to a female phylarch from Syria. Imru al-Qays was a real person, who left a detailed epitaph; he apparently had a wife named Hind, but my fictional character of that name is loosely based on another historical figure: Mavia, or Mawwiya, who led the Tanukhids in a successful uprising against Rome in the AD 370s. Their ‘war hymn’ is derived from a Druze chant noted by Gertrude Bell in The Desert and the Sown (1912), while the epithet ‘Mother of Dust’ (Umm Qastal) comes from the pre-Islamic Arab poet Al-Shanfara.
I have called this series ‘Twilight of Empire’, although in fact the centuries-old power of Rome would not be extinguished in the west for another hundred years or more after the events of this story. It would survive in the east – as the so-called ‘Byzantine’ Empire – well into the Middle Ages. Historians today tend no longer to regard the later Roman era as a degraded and inferior manifestation of the classical world. In many ways the age of Constantine was a return to glory after the chaos and confusion that preceded it. It is only with the benefit of historical hindsight that we can see it as a brief respite before the slow and inevitable collapse into darkness that was to come.
Aurelius Castus, meanwhile, has reached the terminus of a journey which has taken him from wilds of northern Britain to the banks of the Tigris. As always, I am immensely grateful to all those that have helped me in the writing of these books. I would particularly like to thank my agent, Will Francis, and everyone at Janklow and Nesbit. My editor, Rosie de Courcy, has given me invaluable support and guidance in all I have done, as have the rest of the team at Head of Zeus. But most of all I am sincerely grateful to my readers, without whom these successive books would never have been written.
It has been a long road, and I thank you for following it to the end.
About Ian Ross
IAN ROSS was born in England and studied painting before turning to writing fiction. He has travelled widely and, after a year in Italy teaching English and exploring the ruins of empire reawakened his early love for ancient history, he returned to the UK with growing fascination for the period known as late antiquity. He has been researching and writing about the later Roman world and its army for over a decade.
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Ian Ross, 2018
The moral right of Ian Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission o
f both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781784975333
ISBN (XTPB) 9781784975357
ISBN (E) 9781784975326
Author Photo: David Breckon
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Table of Contents
Welcome Page
About Triumph in Dust
Contents
Maps
Epigraph
Historical Note
Prologue: Constantinople, July ad 336
Part 1
Chapter I: Dalmatia, August ad 336
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Part 2
Chapter VII: Constantinople, March ad 337
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Part 3
Chapter XIX: Antioch, June ad 337
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Part 4
Chapter XXVII: Antioch, August ad 337
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Part 5
Chapter XXXIII: Antioch, September ad 337
Chapter XXXIV
Author’s Note
About Ian Ross
About the Twilight of Empire series
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Table of Contents
Welcome Page
About Triumph in Dust
Contents
Maps
Epigraph
Historical Note
Prologue: Constantinople, July ad 336
Part 1
Chapter I: Dalmatia, August ad 336
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Part 2
Chapter VII: Constantinople, March ad 337
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Part 3
Chapter XIX: Antioch, June ad 337
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Part 4
Chapter XXVII: Antioch, August ad 337
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Part 5
Chapter XXXIII: Antioch, September ad 337
Chapter XXXIV
Author’s Note
About Ian Ross
About the Twilight of Empire series
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
