Dara-Anastasiupolis
Coordinates: 37 ° 10 ′ 45 ″ N , 40 ° 57 ′ 5 ″ E
Dara-Anastasiupolis (Δαραί; 'Aναστασιούπολις) was an important late antique Eastern Roman fortress town in northern Mesopotamia between Nisibis and Mardin ; today the small village of Oğuz ( Turkey ) is in its place .
The probably older place Dara (s) was founded in 505 by Emperor Anastasius or expanded considerably, hence the name Anastasiupolis . The project was an important consequence of the Persian War , which broke out in 502 , and was designed to improve the strategic position of the Romans after discovering the vulnerability of the Roman position in northern Mesopotamia. Strong troops were to be stationed in Dara to offer long resistance in the event of a Persian offensive or to stab the enemy in the rear. The work was carried out under great time pressure in order to present the Persian Sassanids with a fait accompli: When an armistice was concluded at the end of 506, Dara was already ready to defend. Due to the above-mentioned haste, however, serious construction defects became apparent after a few years, so the fortress had to be extensively renovated, was therefore particularly vulnerable in 530 and the scene of the great battle at Dara , in which the imperial general Belisarius was able to defeat the Sassanid Persians . Since Dara was apparently a huge construction site at that time, the Romans did not trust the fortress walls, but stood in front of the city for a field battle.
According to Prokop ( De Aedificiis 2, 1–3), Emperor Justinian had the buildings in the city and above all the walls expanded; he gave the fortress city the name Justiniana Nova , but this did not prevail. The two stages of expansion (Anastasius and Justinian) are still clearly recognizable from the fortifications that are preserved today. The Dara dam , one of the oldest known arch dams, was built right in front of the city walls for flood protection . According to Marcellinus Comes , Dara was only 15 Roman miles west of Nisibis (Marc. Com. Ad ann. 518); at that time this important city belonged to Persia and was permanently threatened by the Eastern Roman fortress and the troops stationed there. Conversely, Dara was supposed to protect the Roman territory from the strong Persian garrison stationed in Nisibis.
Since the Romans had violated decades-old contractual agreements with the Sassanids by building the fortress, which was initially the headquarters of the dux Mesopotamiae , which prohibited the construction of new fortifications near the border, Dara was repeatedly the cause of diplomatic clashes between the two great powers. In the Eternal Peace of 532 , the Persian king Chosrau I waived the demand to razor the fortress, but Justinian had to withdraw the dux Mesopotamiae and a considerable part of his troops from the city. In the following years the Romans were also concerned about the safety of Dara, where in 537 the usurpation of Johannes Cottistis failed ; The diplomatic protocol stipulated that Sassanid emissaries were only allowed to enter the fortress without their military escort (Const. Porph. Caerem. 1,89), otherwise they feared a coup d'état. The city, which held a key position in the Eastern Roman defense of the East, was besieged, captured and recaptured several times by the Persians after 573, only to be finally conquered by the Arabs in 639 and quickly lose its importance in view of the radically changed circumstances.
gallery
Dara (late antique cisterns )
Rock graves near Dara
The Dara necropolis
Roman bridge near Dara
The Justinian city wall with openings for the river
literature
- Gunnar Brands : A building complex in Dara-Anastasiopolis . In: Jahrbuch für Antike und Christianentum 47 (2004), pp. 144–155 [with plans and further literature].
- Brian Croke, James Crow: Procopius and Dara . In: Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983), pp. 143-159.
- Italo Furlan: Accertamenti a Dara . Padua 1984.
- Josef Rist: The construction of the East Syrian city of Dara (Anastasiupolis). Reflections on personal property in the church history of Ps.-Zacharias Rhetor . In: M. Tamcke (Ed.), Syriaca II . Münster 2004, pp. 243-266.
- Michael Whitby : Procopius' description of Dara ("Buildings" II 1-3) . In: The defense of the Roman and Byzantine East. Proceedings of a colloquium held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986 . Oxford 1986, pp. 737-783.
- Turgut Saner - Bilge Ar - Gizem Mater (ed.), Metin Ahunbay'ın İzinden: Ayatekla, Binbirkilise ve Dara / Anastasiopolis Araştırmalarından Özel Konular, Istanbul 2017, ISBN 978-605-4778-58-4
- Elif Keser-Kayaalp - Nihat Erdoğan: Recent Research on Dara / Anastasiopolis . In: Efthymios Rizos (ed.): New cities in late antiquity. Documents and archeology . Turnhout 2017, 153–176
Web links
- Michael Weiskopf: Dārā . In: Ehsan Yarshater (ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume 6 (English, including references)