Battle of Callinicum

Battle of Callinicum

Part of: Roman-Persian Wars

Map of the Roman-Persian border

date	April 19, 531
place	Callinicum , Syria
output	Persian victory (stalemate)

Parties to the conflict
Eastern Roman Empire Ghassanids	Sassanid Empire Laughmids
Commander
Belisarius , Hermogenes , Al-Harith ibn Jabalah	Azarethes , Al-Mundhir III ibn al-Nu'man
Troop strength
20,000 or 25,000	15,000 or 20,000
losses
High	High

The battle of Callinicum was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19, 531 AD, between the Eastern Romans under the general Belisarius and the Persian Sassanids under the general Azarethes . After their defeat in the Battle of Dara the previous year, the Sassanids set out in the spring of 531 to invade the Roman province of Syria to turn the fortunes of war (see Roman-Persian Wars ). Belisarius' quick action thwarted this plan, and his troops were able to force the Persians out of Syria by skillful maneuvering. But when the Romans attacked the enemies at Callinicum, who were already about to withdraw into their empire, they suffered very high losses, and Belisarius briefly fell out of favor with Emperor Justinian .

battle

In April 531 a Persian army, consisting exclusively of mounted soldiers, under the command of Azarethes , comprised of around 15,000 cavalry and 5,000 allied Arab Lachmids , crossed the border at Circesium on the Euphrates and advanced very quickly to the northwest, bypassing the Roman border fortresses. It was evidently a matter of demonstrating strength through the raid-like invasion, to gain spoil and to force the Romans to a peace favorable to the Sassanids; permanent conquests, however, could not be made in this way. This strategy, which supposedly went back to a suggestion by the Lachmids, surprised the Romans because, as usual, an attack on northern Mesopotamia or in the Caucasus was expected: The last Persian advance on Syria, however, was centuries ago. As the Persians neared their goal of the rich cities of Syria, Belisarius, who commanded the local Roman forces, followed them on their march west. Belisarius's army initially consisted of only about 5,000 men, reinforced by 3,000 allied Arab Ghassanids , he had to leave the rest of his troops behind to secure the important fortress Dara in Mesopotamia. The Roman troops finally stopped the enemy advance at Chalcis when reinforcements arrived under the orders of the magister officiorum Hermogenes, which allowed the Roman army to grow to over 20,000 men. The Persians, who did not want to risk an open field battle, saw themselves forced to break off the planned raid and withdraw to the east without a fight. The Romans followed them at some distance.

In the beginning, according to the eyewitness Prokopios of Caesarea ( Historien 1.18), Belisarius only wanted to drive the Persians out of the empire without risking a battle. However, the Eastern Roman troops were restless and asked for a battle. After trying unsuccessfully to convince his troops, and allegedly seeing the threat of mutiny, Belisarius ordered the troops to prepare for battle when the Persians were about to cross the Euphrates.

The two armies met outside Callinicum on April 19, 531. The line-up of the two armies differed: Belisarius chose, as has already been successfully applied, an unusual formation to confuse the enemy general. This time he covered his left flank on the bank of the river with infantry, ordered the Ghassanid Arabs on the right flank, and placed several rows of heavy cataphracts in the center. The Persian army chose a more classic line-up. The army was split into two equal parts and the cavalry was posted behind the infantry.

For most of the day there was a stalemate, the Persians and Eastern Romans fired arrows at each other and carried out individual cavalry attacks. After "two thirds of the day" had passed, however, a unit of elite Persian cavalry broke through the right Roman flank, which was supposed to be held by the Ghassanids, so that the Ghassanids turned to flee (they were later accused of treason by the Romans ). By breaking up the right flank, Belisarius was forced to retreat and regroup, but the Persians followed suit and soon pushed the Eastern Romans against the river.

Zacharias of Mytilene says of this battle:

“ [The Romans] turned and fled the Persian attack. Many fell in the Euphrates and drowned, others were killed ” (Zacharias, IX, 4,95,4-95,26).

It is unknown, however, at which stage of the battle Zacharias spoke.

On the river, the Eastern Romans succeeded in building up an effective defense against the Persians and withdrawing a large part of the army across the river. The Persians attacked the Roman ranks incessantly for several hours, but were repulsed with heavy losses from the determined line of defense, led by Belisarius himself, according to Prokopios. The Persians finally gave up the attack and the remaining troops were able to withdraw undisturbed.

output

The outcome of the battle was basically a strategic stalemate: the Eastern Roman army had lost many soldiers and was incapacitated for months, but the Persian army had also lost so many troops that they had to give up the plan to sack Syria and continue their retreat. In fact, the Persian losses were so heavy that, according to Prokopios, after Azarethes returned to the Persian capital, he was relieved of his command by the Great King Kavadh I and his honor was declared forfeit.

While Prokopios emphasizes in his description of the battle that Belisarius was not to blame, but rather that through his personal bravery he prevented the worst for the imperial army, other sources paint a more unfriendly picture: Malalas (18.58-61), for example, reports the army master was cowardly as one of the first to flee the battlefield. There are some indications that Belisarius was subsequently summoned to Constantinople by his unhappy emperor to answer personally - at least he initially lost his command as magister militum per Orientem .

One thing is certain: Callinicum was the end point of Belisar's first Persian campaign. The outcome of the battle is likely to have increased the willingness to negotiate on both sides: In the Eternal Peace , which the new Persian king Chosrau I concluded with Justinian in the late summer of 532 , most of the points of dispute were provisionally settled. 540, however, the Persians were supposed to break the peace: the Sassanid army then pursued the same strategy as in 531, by ignoring the border fortresses in Mesopotamia and advancing directly into Syria instead. In contrast to nine years earlier, however, 540 did not face sufficiently strong imperial troops, so that Chosrau could plunder the cities of Syria at will. A new war with the Romans began, which would last until 562.

literature

• Dariusz Brodka: Prokopios and Malalas on the battle of Callinicum . In: Classica Cracoviensia 14, 2011, pp. 71-93.
• Hartmut Leppin : Justinian. The Christian experiment . Stuttgart 2011, p. 134f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Ian Hughes: Belisarius: The Last Roman General . Pen and Sword, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84468-941-5 (English, google.com ).