The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

182
EVAGRIUS
concerning these matters and to follow through everything precisely,
this has been recorded and narrated most learnedly by Eustathius with
great exertion and the utmost elegance: after making a record down to
this report he was numbered among the departed, having died in the
twelfth year of Anastasius’ reign. 140
Now, after this war Anastasius established Dara, a place in Mesopotamia
situated at the extremity of the Roman realm which is a
boundary-marker, as it were, for the two states; he turned this from a
¢eld into a city, fortifying it with a strong circuit wall and bestowing
on it various remarkable constructions ^ not only churches and other
sacred buildings, but colonnades and public baths and other things
with which distinguished cities are adorned. 141 It is said by some that
the place Dara obtained its appellation from the fact that Alexander
the Macedonian, the son of Philip, comprehensively defeated Darius
here. 142
38 And one very great and memorable work was completed by the same
emperor, the so-called Long Wall, which is well positioned in Thrace.
This is about 280 stades distant from Constantinople, and links the two
balance, although Amida had to be repurchased in 505 after a long siege failed to dislodge
the Persian garrison. Ps.-Zachariah vii.5 and Joshua 83 refer to the reconstruction of the
defences and benefactions to the local church: see further Stein, Bas-Empire II. 99, and for
a succinct survey of the war, Blockley, Policy 89^93.
140 Malalas too records the death of the most learned chronicler Eustathius after recording
the campaign of 503 but before he could complete his account of the war (399:3^
4); it is most economical to postulate that Evagrius was in£uenced by the shape of Malalas’
narrative at this point (Persian war, death of Eustathius, foundation of Dara), even though
not all the information in Evagrius is preserved in the abridged extant version of Malalas.
141 Dara was established as a military base close to the frontier to avoid the logistical
problems which had hampered Roman operations in the current war; it was sited roughly
half-way between the nearest Roman fort at Mardin and the Persian frontier city of Nisibis;
the actual frontier was about ¢ve kilometres to the south-east. Construction at Dara began
in 505, but work probably slowed after the end of hostilities with Persia in 507. There are
important accounts of the fortress in ps.-Zachariah vii.6; Procopius, Buildings ii.1^3;
Joshua the Stylite ch. 90. There are modern discussions of the ancient sources and the surviving
ruins by Croke and Crow, ‘Dara’; Whitby, ‘Dara’.
142 The etymology, which is also recorded by Malalas (399:13^20), is fabulous, since in
331 BC Alexander defeated Darius III at Gaugamela, near Arbela (Erbil) in modern Iraq;
Chron. Pasch. 609:4^7 has a rather more complex etymology, attributing the place name to
the fact that Alexander struck the Persian king with a spear (dorati).