Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins
In response, the Roman catapults lining the walls let fly. “Heads were shattered, as masses of stone hurled by the scorpions crushed many of the enemy. Others were pierced by arrows. Some were struck down by spears.” The ground outside the city was soon strewn with bodies. But the defenders also took heavy casualties. “A thick cloud of arrows darkened the air, while the artillery that the Persians had acquired from the plunder of Singara inflicted still more wounds.” [Ibid., 2, 7–8] Persian wounded frequently returned to the fight after having their wounds patched up, or called on their comrades from where they lay on the battlefield to pluck out the arrows that had pierced their bodies.
The assault did not stop with nightfall. The Persian forces worked in relays at the walls, and only late in the night did they retire. Every dawn they began all over again.
The assault lasted throughout the next day until the Persians withdrew to their camp after dark. Inside the city, Roman defenders who did not die at once from arrow wounds died slowly from loss of blood. There was nowhere to bury Roman dead, so they were simply piled in the streets. Predictably, disease broke out in the city. The pestilence would pass after ten days; the defenders put the end of the plague down to a fall of light rain.
Count Ursicinus, meanwhile, had reached Edessa, the Roman headquarters for the region. There, he tried to convince Count Sabinianus to send troops with him to relieve Amida, or at least to harass the besiegers, but Sabinianus produced letters from the emperor Constantius ordering him not to put the troops under at him at risk, and refused to release any men to Ursicinus for the relief of Amida. The powerless count, compared by Ammianus to a lion robbed of its claws and teeth, was restricted to sending scouts to Amida to find out the latest state of affairs there. [Ibid., 3, 1–3]
The siege dragged on through the “steaming heat” of summer. The Persians had learned the art of siege from the Romans, and as the daily attacks by bowmen and slingers continued they also built mantlets to protect men trying to undermine the city walls, and began building earth ramps designed to reach the top of the walls. Ammianus saw tall wooden towers with iron protection on the front being built at the foot of the growing ramps, each with a ballista mounted on top. [Ibid., 5, 1–2]
The two legions raised by Magnentius in Gaul had received no training in the use of artillery, and neither did these Gallic farmers have any skills in the building of fortifications. They were experienced in battle in the open field, said Ammianus, but in the type of fighting in which they were now engaged they proved more of a hindrance than a help. Several times the Gauls slipped out of the city to harass the mound builders, dashing back inside after having inflicted some casualties and causing panic. The Gallic legionaries were brave and fierce, said Ammianus, but their reckless efforts achieved little, and were like pouring a single handful of water on a fire; they only resulted in diminishing their own numbers. In the end, the Gauls’ officers forbade them to again venture out, and additional bars were put on the gates to keep them inside. [Ibid., 5, 2–3]
Although a fresh water spring bubbled up at the foot of the citadel in Amida, a tunnel had been hollowed out of the rock leading from the tower on the southeast corner of the city down to the Tigris river, to allow water to be brought up to the inhabitants in emergencies. A Roman deserter knew about this tunnel, and he now
led seventy archers from Shapur’s bodyguard to its entrance. In the night, these men crept up the tunnel, entered the tower, and positioned themselves on its topmost third floor. As the sun rose, they waved a red cloak, signaling to the Persian lines that they were in position. As the Persian army launched a fresh assault, with waves of attackers sweeping toward the walls equipped with scaling ladders, the archers that had infiltrated the tower fired down into the city with deadly accuracy, causing mayhem inside Amida.
At first, the Romans could not work out where the devastating shower of arrows was coming from. Once the Persians were spotted on the southeast tower, Ammianus was among those given the task of relocating five light ballistas to adjacent towers. Using these, the Romans were able to cut down the Persian archers with their ballista spears. Devoid of cover, and seeing comrades fall all around them, some of the Persian bowmen jumped from the tower, to be killed on the river rocks below. The tower was soon cleared, but the infiltrators had caused numerous casualties in Amida.
Meanwhile, outside, many Persians had succeeded in reaching the walls and scaling the ladders to fight hand-to-hand with the defenders on the battlements. The five redirected ballistas were now turned on the Persians, clearing the walls of attackers by midday. The Persians suspended the assault for the remainder of the day and returned to their lines.
The following day, from Amida’s elevated central citadel, a long line of prisoners could be seen, being herded to the Persian camp below. Detachments from Shapur’s army had taken several forts in the area, including a large emplacement called Zatia, whose walls ran for more than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers). Leaving the fortifications of Zatia in flames, the Persians had brought their thousands of Roman prisoners to the siege of Amida. Many of the captives were elderly men and women; those who could not keep up with the column and fell by the wayside had their calf muscles slashed or their hamstrings cut by their Persian guards, so that they could not escape and would starve to death where they fell. From the walls of Amida, this could all be seen happening.
The hot-headed Gauls of the two Magnentian legions, infuriated at the way the prisoners were being treated and by the loss of the neighboring fortresses, attempted to smash through the wooden bars on the gates with their swords. This convinced the commanders at Amida to give the Gauls their head, so they were instructed to launch a night attack on the Persian guardposts that stood just a little out of arrow
range around the city, and then push on to wreak as much havoc as they could inside the walls of the vast Persian camp. The Gauls hurried off to their quarters to prepare for their mission.
The night chosen for the Gallic raid was overcast and moonless. In the early hours of the morning, a rear gate was quietly opened, and the men of the two legions slipped out, armed with swords and battleaxes, their national weapons of choice. Without making a sound they crept up to Persian guardposts. Guards were quietly dispatched where they stood. Off-duty Persians of the guard units in their beds nearby were killed in their sleep. The Gauls were planning to sneak all the way to King Shapur’s quarters, but as they pushed on through the gates in the sandbagged Persian rampart the alarm was raised. Persians rushed to arms, and fell on the attackers as they penetrated the Persian encampment.
Faced by raging Persians on every side, the Gauls formed up, and stood their ground. Clouds of arrows came out of the night, bringing down many a Gallic legionary. Slowly, they backtracked from the camp and toward the city walls, walking backward, fighting as they went, in step “as if retreating to music” said Ammianus. Persian trumpets were sounding the alarm throughout the massive camp as the Gauls withdrew toward the city, losing men to arrows with each pace. [Ibid., 6, 9]
On the city walls, Ammianus and other Romans had been waiting breathlessly for the outcome of the attack. Realizing that the Gauls were returning, the defenders opened a gate for them, as, up on the walls, the artillery “roared constantly”—going through the motions of firing but without letting go with any ammunition, so that the Gauls weren’t hit by friendly fire. The Persians in pursuit, on hearing the familiar sounds of catapults firing, ducked and hugged the ground. This gave the Gauls enough time to flee in through the open gate, just as the sun was rising. Before the pursuing Persians could reach it, the gate was swiftly closed again.
The raid had cost the Gauls 400 dead, and many of those who returned were wounded. Among the dead were the senior officers of both legions, their prefects and tribunes. Prior to this mission the officers had strived to hold their men in check, but once their units had been given the task of penetrating the enemy camp, the officers had been at the forefront of the fighting, and had paid with their lives. When the emperor Constantius heard about the bravery of the fallen officers he ordered statues of them to be made, wearing full armor, and to be erected in the provincial capital, Edessa.
Once the sun rose, the Persians, surveying the thousands of dead at the outposts and in their camp, found officers of grandee and satrap rank among the casualties, and wails of grief rose up from all quarters. Shapur sent a message to the Roman commanders asking for, and being granted, a three-day truce to enable proper funerals to be carried out for their men.
The Romans had time to take breath, and take stock. At two places outside the city, toiling Persian infantrymen had been slowly raising their earth ramps. To counter these, inside the city, whenever there was a break in hostilities, defenders had been working on raising mounds of their own opposite the location of the Persian mounds, so that a substantial number of Romans could meet the enemy should they come over the walls at those places, on equal ground. Work on the Roman mounds continued uninterrupted through the three-day truce. But the Romans knew that once the Persian mounds were completed, they would be like sloping highways into Amida, permitting the attackers to flood into the city in their tens of thousands. The end of Amida might be delayed, but not prevented.
With the truce at an end, the Persian attack resumed with renewed intensity; the Persians were determined to avenge their dead comrades. The ironclad Persian towers were now rolled up into artillery range, and Persian infantry rolled forward the wooden sheds on wheels. Others took positions behind mobile wicker screens. The entire Persian army seemed to be massed around the city, in precise, ordered lines of infantry and cavalry. Persian trumpets began to play “slow notes,” to which the attackers walked forward with onerous precision, not in a mad rush as before. As soon as the slowly advancing enemy lines were within range, the Romans’ wall-mounted catapults opened fire.
“Almost no form of dart failed to find its mark. Even the mail-clad horsemen were checked and gave ground.” The Persians broke formation, and, in open order, returned fire with their bows. At the same time, the ballistas mounted on top of the two massive assault towers, which were even taller than the towers of Amida, “caused terrible carnage on our side,” said Ammianus, as they shot down from their great height. The bloody battle lasted all day. The attackers were beaten off yet again, and withdrew at sunset. [Ibid., 7, 4–5]
That night, Count Aelianus and the surviving Roman officers held a conference to try to devise a tactic against the ballistas on the enemy towers. Many ideas were discussed, but finally it was agreed that four stone-throwing catapults would be quietly
moved into positions on the walls directly opposite the enemy towers, from where they would open fire at sunrise.
Taking pains not to make any noise, the Romans relocated the weapons. It was “an act calling for the greatest skill,” said Ammianus, for, if the tactic was to work, the Persians must not know that with the coming of the dawn the Roman artillery was positioned at such point-blank range. As soon as the first streaks of daylight lit the sky, the defenders could see lines of Persian attackers forming up below, supported by trumpeting war elephants. Before the sleepy Persian gunners in the assault towers opposite realized what was happening, the four Roman catapults let fly at the pair of towers. Massive stones flew through the air, with immediate effect. The wooden towers’ framework was shattered, and the towers collapsed, throwing the two ballistas and their crews to the ground, destroying both. [Ibid., 7, 6]
The Roman catapults then directed their aim at the Persian elephants, firing a stream of burning arrows at them. If a flame touched an elephant, the beast turned and fled in terror, with its driver unable to control it. Burning arrows were then shot into the wreckage of the two tumbled towers, and they were soon in flames. King Shapur considered this turn of events sufficiently bad to enter the battle himself, which was unheard of, said Ammianus; Persian rulers never usually took part in combat. Shapur’s large bodyguard served to draw Roman attention to the king, and artillery fire was aimed at the royal party. When many of those around him were cut down by Roman missiles, Shapur was forced to retire out of range. But the siege continued, with fresh units being thrown into the fight by the Persians in the afternoon.
For day after day the battle continued in this way, until the focus shifted to the two Persian mounds and the countering Roman mounds inside the walls, with archers on both mounds fighting each other across the void. But then luck deserted the defenders. One of their earth mounds, standing well above the wall to match the enemy mound outside, gave way, collapsing toward the wall. Earth from the collapsed Roman mound filled the gap between Persian mound and wall, creating a causeway between the two. The attackers flooded up the Persian mound and over this causeway in their tens of thousands. Defenders rushed to the spot, becoming so densely packed together that they got in each other’s way.
Hectic hand-to-hand fighting decided by the sword followed, as the Persians flooded over the wall and into Amida. Persians ran amok in the streets of the city. Armed and unarmed, male and female “were slaughtered like so many cattle” by the
Persians. As darkness approached, most of the surviving Roman defenders massed in the one place to make a final stand, at the citadel. Ammianus, meanwhile, was cut off from the bulk of his comrades. With two Roman rank and file soldiers he hid in “a secluded part of the city.” In the night, the three of them slipped out of a rear gate, and fled. Behind them, the last defenders at the citadel were overwhelmed, and Amida fell to the Persians.
After traveling 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Amida, Ammianus and his two companions reached a horse-changing station of the Cursus Publicus Velox. But all the horses had been taken. “I was already unequal to the excessive walking, to which, as a gentleman, I was unaccustomed,” said Ammianus, and he was not looking forward to continuing the escape bid on foot. Then—a stroke of luck for Ammianus—the trio came on a horse. A groom had used it in an attempt to escape. Because the horse had no saddle, the groom had wrapped the reins around his wrist to help him keep his seat on its back. At some point the groom had fallen off, and the terrified horse had dragged him through forest and over desert. The groom was a bloody pulp, and very dead. Separating corpse and horse, Ammianus mounted up, and the two soldiers led the young officer and his steed west. [Ibid., 8, 6]