Masters of the Battlefield

by Davis, Paul K.

  The Persian infantry was the weakest arm. It was scorned by the Romans. Procopius quotes Belisarius in his prebattle speech before Dara: “For their whole infantry is nothing more than a crowd of pitiable peasants who come into battle for no other purpose than to dig through walls and to despoil the slain and in general to serve the soldiers. For this reason they have no weapons at all with which they might trouble their opponents, and they only hold before themselves those enormous shields in order that they may not possibly be hit by the enemy.”25 Modern historians echo that attitude, pointing to the performance at the Battle of Dara, when the paighan (infantry) dropped their shields and abandoned the field after the Savaran (heavy cavalry) were defeated.26 These were peasant conscripts with neither training nor motivation, forming a rear guard and regarded as next to useless.27

  Without a contemporary Persian historian like Procopius, exact details of Persian tactics have to be pieced together from Romano-Byzantine and later Muslim sources. It appears that they did not alter their fighting methods in the wake of defeats at Hunnic hands. Roman sources describe the typical Sassanian battle deployment as dividing an army into a center, ideally on a hill, with two wings, with spare horses being kept at the rear.28 Some sources describe a cavalry front with infantry archers on the left wing. In some cases elephants are mentioned, though not in any battle in which Belisarius fought. Later sources describe an infantry center with cavalry wings and a force of elite reserves, or an arc of troops in the center flanked by cavalry protecting the herds on one side and the baggage on the other, with a hospital in the center rear. Combat was straightforward, dominated by the heavy cavalry, with little in the way of flanking movements or deception.

  The Opponents

  IN A MOVE TOWARD RECONCILIATION with the Byzantines, the Persian king Cavadh in 523 or 524 offered his fourth and favorite son, Chosroes, to Emperor Justin for adoption in order to protect him from jealous older brothers at Cavadh’s death. The Romans seriously considered the offer, but ultimately rejected it as a potential threat to imperial succession; Cavadh took the refusal personally. In 524 he launched a campaign that conquered Iberia, provoking Roman counteroffensives in Persian Armenia; these were the previously mentioned attacks led by Sittas and Belisarius. Their defeat at the hands of Narses and Aratius in 526 apparently had no ill effects on Justinian’s opinion, and he was the power behind Justin’s throne. As Lord Mahon argues, “We may conclude that the personal conduct of Belisarius, on the last occasion, was not only free from blame, but even entitled to praise, since we find him, immediately afterwards [527], promoted to the post of Governor of Dara.”29 It is not recorded how Belisarius performed personally in that battle, but another in 528 had no better result. This was an attack in support of a Byzantine fort being erected at Thannuris, on the frontier of the southern front.30 Procopius writes merely that “a fierce battle took place in which the Romans were defeated, and there was a great slaughter of them.”31 A contemporary account by Zachariah of Mitylene is somewhat less terse but more unflattering: when the Persians learned of the Roman approach, “they devised a stratagem, and dug several ditches among their trenches, and concealed them all round outside by triangular stakes of wood, and left several openings.… They did not perceive the Persians’ deceitful stratagem in time, but the generals entered the Persian entrenchment at full speed.… Of the Roman army those who were mounted turned back and returned in flight to Dara with Belisarius; but the infantry, who did not escape, were killed and taken captive.”32

  In spite of this setback, in 529 or 530 Belisarius was named master of the soldiers in the East (Magister Militum per Orientem), in command of one of the empire’s five field armies. (He also at this point took on Procopius as his secretary-aide, leading to the firsthand accounts of Belisarius’s campaigns.) The flash point for conflict was on the upper reaches of the Tigris at the Byzantine city of Dara, not far from the Persian stronghold at Nisibis. He made his headquarters at Dara, where he was ordered to repair the city’s defenses as a counterbalance to the nearby Persian stronghold at Nisibis.

  In the wake of these recent military reverses, Justinian was of a mind to negotiate with King Cavadh, who had threatened war if the gold for the northern frontier defense he had long demanded was not forthcoming: “But, as pious Christians, spare lives and bodies and give us part of your gold. If you do not do this, prepare yourselves for war. For this you have a whole year’s notice, so that we should not be thought to have stolen our victory or to have won the war by trickery,” wrote the contemporary chronicler John Malalas.33 Cavadh, however, did not wait a year. When Justinian’s envoy was on his return trip to the Persian capital, he stopped at Dara. A Persian army was already approaching.

  The Battle of Dara

  BELISARIUS COMMANDED 25,000 MEN AT DARA, probably about one-third of them cavalry. Fearing the potential conflict, he had scoured the countryside for manpower to reach that number, but the discipline of the force was hurt, and their spirit broken by their former setbacks.34 The cavalry were in finer fettle, with at least 1,200 Huns and 300 Herules (a tribe of Scandinavian descent). Belisarius had sufficient time before the Persian approach to prepare the battlefield. Perhaps remembering his own disaster against Persian trenches near Thannuris two years earlier, he had a trench dug parallel to the city walls. According to Procopius, it was “a stone’s throw” away from the city wall. The trench was neither straight nor continuous, but had several crossings left for troops to advance or retreat across it. “In the middle there was a rather short portion straight, and at either end of this there were dug two cross trenches at right angles to the first; and starting from the extremities of the two cross trenches, they continued two straight trenches in the original direction to a very great distance.”35

  To the left flank were an unknown number of heavy cavalry behind a hill under Bouzes accompanied by the 300 Herules commanded by Pharas. To their right, stationed at the trench’s right angle, were 600 Hun light cavalry under Sunicas and Aigan. On the other side of the trench cutout, the formation was a mirror image, less the flanking hill. Another unidentified number of heavy cavalry were deployed on the Roman right led by a number of cocommanders under the overall command of John, son of Nicetas. The infantry lined up behind the ditch, with Belisarius and his cocommander Hermogenes behind them, almost certainly leading their respective bucellarii, which could have numbered a few thousand. Procopius does not mention any light infantry deployed as skirmishers along the front.

  The inset section of the trench, in the center, is described only as at right angles to the lengthy main trench; Procopius does not make it clear if that section is set forward or to the rear. Oman, Art of War in the Middle Ages (pp. 28–29), says the line was refused, and most maps show it set back, toward the city, but the Harvard edition of Procopius (p. 103), as well as Goldsworthy (Name of Rome, p. 412) and Greatrex (Rome and Persia, p. 172), shows it extending toward the Persian lines. Given that the main section of line was “a stone’s throw” from the city walls, it seems unlikely that the entire body of infantry as well as Belisarius’s bodyguard cavalry could have fit in the area if the trench section were refused. To do so would most certainly have obliged the infantry and possibly the cavalry to form up in two sections, which one would assume Procopius would have noted.

  The Persian force initially numbered 40,000 under the command of Peroz Mihran.36 He marched to Dara with such confidence that he “immediately sent to Belisarius bidding him make ready the bath: for he wished to bathe there on the following day.”37 He apparently had second thoughts as he came within site of the Roman force and found them formed up, ready for battle. Like the Romans, he placed his infantry in the center and his cavalry on the flanks. Again, specific numbers are unknown, but the Immortals38 were placed in reserve. The others were stationed in two ranks so the rear units could rotate into battle as the leading units lost manpower or ran out of arrows. As it grew later in the day, Peroz probed the Roman left with a cavalry squadron. They en
joyed quick success until they discovered too late that the Romans were engaging in the Parthian tactic of the feigned retreat—apparently the Persians had not considered they could be beaten at their own game. Rather than follow this up with a major assault, the Persians tried another, more psychological ploy: the single combat, in which an individual soldier from either side met and fought with no intervention from their respective armies. This, too, failed the Persians when a Roman volunteer, a wrestling instructor who was not even a part of the army but an attendant to the cavalry commander Bouzes, handily defeated two Persian warriors. Peroz would have to bathe outside the city. The Persians withdrew to their camp at Ammodius, just over two miles away.

  The next day was taken up in an exchange of messages, as well as a Persian reinforcement of a further 10,000 troops from Nisibis. Belisarius and Hermogenes, the civilian governor in Dara, offered a peaceful resolution to the confrontation, arguing that since both kings desired peace and negotiators were at hand, Peroz should not be seeking battle. Asserting that the greatest of blessings was peace, Belisarius insisted that Peroz should avoid a fight “lest at some time you be held responsible by the Persians, as is probable, for the disasters which will come to pass.”39 Peroz’s return missive doubted Roman sincerity. Two more messages invoked God on the Roman side and the Persian gods in return. Again, Peroz alerted Belisarius that a bath, as well as dinner, was expected inside the city.

  On the third day, each commander gave his troops a suitably inspiring motivational address before the armies once more formed up outside Dara’s walls as they had at their first meeting. As the deployment was taking place, Pharas, the Herule commander, suggested to Belisarius that he detach his unit and station his 300 cavalry behind a hill on the far left wing. This would give the opportunity for a surprise attack on the advancing Persian cavalry flank where they could do them the greatest harm.40 Belisarius quickly agreed. Once the armies faced each other, however, nothing happened. As Goldsworthy observes, the “Roman formation was geared to receiving a frontal attack and, with the wall of Dara so close behind them, such an attack was the only viable option open to Peroz if he wished to take the city.”41 Hence, Belisarius was not about to do anything other than await the attack. Peroz wanted to delay the battle until at least noon, hoping to force the Romans to miss their midday meal and weaken them. (The Persians normally ate later in the day.) This delay apparently did not have the desired effect.

  The battle started with an exchange of arrows, but apparently only on the flanks. Procopius makes no mention of any fighting taking place in the center. The Persians had the advantage in numbers, as well as the rotation of fresh archers to the front; harking back to Thermopylae, Procopius claims the arrows darkened the sky. Unfortunately for Peroz, the Romans had a strong wind at their back, so the effect of the barrage was minimized. The Persians had been advancing while firing, for Procopius writes that as the arrows ran out, “they began to use their spears against each other, and the battle had come still more to close quarters.”42 The Roman left soon found themselves under severe pressure, for their opponents were not Persians; instead, they were up against the Kadishaye, a warlike tribe from Beth Arabaye,43 a region some 100 kilometers south of the Dara-Nisibis area. This early Persian advance, however, was exactly what Pharas the Herule had apparently been counting on, for his men “got in the rear of the enemy and made a wonderful display of valorous deeds,” according to Procopius.44 The leftward Hun unit also joined in the fray, and the Kadishaye found themselves surrounded and slaughtered. Three thousand died and the remainder fled to the safety of the Persian infantry lines.

  In the meantime, Peroz had been shifting his Immortals out of reserve and to his left. Belisarius saw this and ordered the Huns under Sunicas and Aigan to cease their action on the left and rush to the opposite side of the battlefield. They joined with the right-hand Hun force under Simmas and Ascan. As his initial attack was being driven back, Peroz ordered his left-flank cavalry forward with the Immortals in support. As did the other assault, this too gained some early success and forced the Roman cavalry back. Focused on the retreating cavalry, the Sassanids were unprepared for the Huns to strike their flank. The Hunnic cavalry drove not only into but through the charging Sassanids, separating them into two forces. At this point the retreating Romans stopped before the rapidly rising ground and turned to meet their attackers, now weaker by half.

  The combat turned into melee, made more chaotic as Belisarius and Hermogenes lent the weight of their reserve cavalry. Sunicas killed both the Immortals’ standard bearer and their commander, Barasamas. “As a result of this the barbarians were seized with great fear and thought no longer of resistance, but fled in utter confusion,” Procopius writes. “And the Romans, having made a circle as it were around them, killed about five thousand.”45 Struck from multiple angles and leaderless, the Sassanid cavalry broke. With the cavalry streaming to the rear, the infantry also broke and ran. The pursuit was on, but Belisarius halted it rather than attempt an annihilation. He knew that a cornered army could fight desperately and snatch victory from defeat, a prospect he was not willing to face. Instead, Belisarius was content to win a clear-cut victory and enjoy the benefits to his troops’ morale.

  All the battles discussed to this point have been won by the offense, but at Dara the defense prevailed. Belisarius had used the time during the peace talks not only to gather forces but also to prepare his position. The extended ditch across his front discouraged a frontal attack, encouraging Peroz to split his force and attack the flanks with fewer troops. Since the Persians had twice as many men, the division of forces apparently did not affect Peroz as it should have. The trench provided an artificial obstacle by which Belisarius was able to channel the Sassanian avenues of attack; it also provided security for his lesser-quality infantry and disrupted any plan for a massed assault. Belisarius’s uses of mass and concentration were most notable; he quickly moved his central Hunnic horse to either flank as necessary to counter the Sassanian cavalry charges. His one use of concealment and cover, the Herules behind the hill on his far left flank, also proved effective. Being on slightly higher ground than the attackers, Belisarius also had the advantage in observation; his sighting of the Immortals shifting into position for the attack gave him time to shift his own Hun cavalry completely across the battlefield while preparing his personal bucellari reserve for the final counterattack. The positioning of his force so close to the city gates, as well as the rapidly rising ground behind his forces and the city, kept his line of communication secure and severely restricted any chance of the Sassanian cavalry succeeding in a flanking attack or move to the rear.

  The loss of as much as half his army shocked Peroz and Cavadh. To make matters worse, a subsidiary offensive to the north was also defeated. Temporarily, at least, the Romans had the upper hand in this section of the frontier. After several months, Cavadh took the advice of an Arab ally named Almondar, as Mahon describes, to “avoid the beaten track of Amida or Nisibis, and to invade the Roman territories for the first time on the side of Syria. Here his approach would be unexpected, and therefore his progress easy, and he might hope to reduce the city of Antioch, which its luxury rendered both alluring and defenseless.”46 Early in 531 Cavadh sent 15,000 cavalry on a sweep to the west, the force being commanded by Azarethes. When they reached Gabbula, some 100 miles south of Antioch, the alarm was raised. Belisarius reacted swiftly by leading 20,000 men to cut off the Sassanian approach. His army included 2,000 local recruits and a number of less-than-experienced forces, for he had been obliged to leave veterans behind to guard the frontier posts if this attack proved to be a diversion for a larger Sassanian attack elsewhere.

  As soon as Azarethes learned of Belisarius’s approach, he began a withdrawal. Belisarius shadowed them a day’s march behind. He viewed an expulsion of the enemy without a battle to be better than the risk of combat with his potentially untrustworthy troops. According to Procopius, however, Belisarius allowed himself to be sway
ed by aggressive subordinates and the urging of the army as a whole. After he addressed them on the folly of fighting in the wake of an extended Easter fast, the troops “began to insult him, not in silence nor with any concealment, but they came shouting into his presence, and called him weak and a destroyer of their zeal; and even some of the officers joined with the soldiers in this offence, thus displaying the extent of their daring.”47 Belisarius eventually gave in to their demands and deployed along the right bank of the Euphrates, opposite the town of Callinicum.

  Procopius describes the battle as hard and closely fought, with much damage inflicted on both armies by archers. Then, late in the day a Persian attack on the allied Saracen cavalry broke through the Roman right flank, cutting off a Roman retreat. Belisarius led the infantry as long as he could, but as the Persians made more progress on both flanks he finally led the remnants of his men into and across the river to safety. John Malalas, however, gives a different account. He claims that as the right flank collapsed and many of the new recruits “saw the Saracens fleeing, they threw themselves into the Euphrates thinking they could get across. When Belisarios [sic] saw what was happening, he took his standard with him and got into a boat; he crossed the Euphrates and came to Kallinikon. The army followed him. Some used boats, others tried to swim with their horses, and they filled the river with corpses.”48 Malalas asserts that two subordinates led the fight to cover the escaping army, and they held the Persians at bay until dark.