Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

596 21b. syria, palestine and mesopotamia
substantial cash payment. This peace lasted until 572, when the Romans
attempted to take advantage of perceived Persian weakness in Armenia and
Nisibis, and open warfare again broke out. Unfortunately, the Romans
underestimated their opponents’ strength, and Khusro retaliated in 573 by
raiding and sacking Apamea, the capital of Syria II. 22 In the same year, the
Persians also took the key frontier fortress of Dara. Hostilities dragged on
for some twenty years after this, even during the years of truce from 574 to
578. In 591, however, Khusro II was obliged to ask Maurice for help in
recovering his throne and was happy to return Dara and Martyropolis,
which had been handed over to the Persians by treachery. 23
The close of the sixth century saw the frontier very much as it had been
in 425. The Romans were in control of Dara but never regained Nisibis.
The Persian wars had been a burden on the central treasury but, apart from
a few major disasters – Amida in 503, Antioch in 540, and Dara and
Apamea in 573 – and intermittent ravaging of the countryside of Osrhoene
and Mesopotamia, they do not seem to have caused major damage to the
provinces and there were many years of uninterrupted peace.
The only other external threat came from the desert. The desert frontiers
of Syria and Palestine were very difficult to defend: frontier forts were
easily bypassed by swiftly moving bands of bedouin raiders. From the fifth
century onwards, the imperial authorities had realized that it was important
to secure bedouin allies and increasingly turned to diplomacy and subsidy
as a cheaper and more effective way of defending the settled areas than military
force. From the end of the fourth century, the leaders of the tribe of
Salīh · seem to have been recognized as phylarchs or managers of the Arab
tribes allied to the empire. 24 At the end of the fifth century, the Salīh · id phylarchy,
about which we have very little information, was challenged by the
arrival of two new tribes in the area, Kinda and Ghassān. In 491 Emesa
(Homs) was sacked by the Arabs and in 498 Ghassān raided Palestine and,
although they were defeated by the dux Romanos, they continued to pose
a threat. Probably in 503, Salīh · were replaced as phylarchs by the chiefs of
Ghassān and Kinda. From 503 to 528 it seems as if each province had its
phylarch working alongside the dux, and in 529 the dux of Palestine was
assisted by the phylarch of the province in the suppression of the
Samaritan revolt.
In 531 Justinian recognized al-H · ārith b. Jabala the Ghassānid as chief
phylarch, in overall charge of the defence of the frontier between the
Euphrates and the Red Sea, probably to give him power and status equal to
22 The sack is described by John of Ephesus, HE (ed. with Latin trans. E. W. Brooks, CSCO, Scriptores
Syri 54 (Louvain 1952)), vi.6. The wealth and importance of Apamea in this period have been confirmed
by recent excavations, on which see Balty (1981).
23 See Whitby, Maurice 276–304 for a full account of the Persian wars of this period.
24 On Salih: Sartre (1982) 146–9, 153–62, and Kawar (1958); Shahı - d (1989).
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