Aspects of Byzantium and the Roman East [2] 9782503528755, 2503528759

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Aspects of the Roman East II Papers in Honour of Pro/essor Sir Fergus Millar FBA

STUDIAANTIQUAAUSTRALIENSIA EDITORIAL BOARD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ANCIENT HIS TORY DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH CENTRE MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY Editors in Chief: Samuel Lieu FAHA (Macquarie University) Paul McKechnie (Macquarie University) Alarma Nobbs AM (Macquarie University) Board Members: Pauline Allen, FAHA (Australian Catholic University) Brian Croke, FAHA (Macquarie University/ University of Sydney) John Davidson (Victoria University of Wellington) Andrew Gillett (Macquarie University) Geoffrey Greatrex (University of Ottawa) Timothy Gregory (Ohio State University) Naguib Kanawati, AM FAHA (Macquarie University) Paul McKechnie (Macquarie) Neil McLynn (Corpus Christi College, Oxford) Geoffrey Nathan (University of New South Wales) Tessa Rajak (Somerville College, Oxford) Claudia Rapp (University of Vienna) Roger Scott, FAHA (University of Melbourne) Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (SOAS, University of London) VOLUME?

Aspects of the Roman East Papers in Honour of Professor Sir Fergus Millar,

FBA

II Edited by Samuel N. C. Lieu and Paul McKechnie

BREPOLS

ANCIENT CULTURES RESEARCH CENTRE MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY N.S.W.AUSTRALIA

© 2016, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2016/0095/120 ISBN 978-2-503-52875-5

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Figure 16- Sa'neh, aerial photo

Diyatheh, only 11 kilometres north of Sa'neh, includes a Roman castellum, assigned by Villeneuve to the period of Diocletian (Fig. 17). Though comparable to Qasr Bshir in plan, the sizeable (72 by 52 m) enclosure has small, shallow corner and interval towers except on the southwest where an earlier defensive tower (10.5 m2) has been incorporated. Pottery evidence (beginning in the first century AD) is consistent with the Diocletianic dating.

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There are two other sites northeast ofBkhara of possible interest but only one26 seems to hold any prospect of a Diocletianic association. Bauzou notes that the size of the fort is considerably larger than the average (90 metres square) but the remains (possibly mud brick) are almost impossible to discem on the ground. If the remains are Diocletianic, this would indicate a concem by the builders of the Strata Diocletiana to strengthen security on the southem approach from the desert to the Palmyra oasis. In Poidebard's 1934 study, he posited a further line of fortified water points out in the desert to the east of the main Damascus-Palmyra route linking Saib Biyar, al-Elayaniye, Mleke, Bkhara. None of the first three points has been re-studied and in only one case (al-Mleke) does Poidebard claim any Diocletianic association. Shelagh Gregory observes that any resemblance between the square-corner plan fort and the classic Diocletianic type (Bshir) is purely superficial and that the 'proportions and the size and projection of the towers are quite different' .27 More likely, the fort was a later project - Byzantine/Ghassanid or Islamic. (It is mentioned in al-Tabari who relates one version of the assassination ofWalid II in which the Caliph managed to flee Bkhara and sought to rally his supporters.) Mleke is therefore not included on the map for present purposes. Poidebard quoted a French army officer's sighting of a 'Roman bath' at Saib Biyar (on the modem highway to Baghdad) but the remains, associated with a watchtower, had already disappeared undemeath the recently built French barracks when he visited on the ground in 1931. In the late third century, the Romans established a new headquarters for the legion stationed at Palmyra, the Legio I Illyricum. They walled off a section of the town and furnished the military camp with lavish administrative and religious monuments. Though this work may have begun earlier when the first legion was established there in 273, the camp is given Diocletian's name, a custom followed by its Polish excavators. (The site is examined further below.)

26

Un-named but noted in Bauzou, Afinibus Syriae, 350-51.

27

Gregory, Roman Military Architecture, vol. II (Amsterdam 1997) 205.

Diocletian s Fortification ofSyria & Arabia

32

After Palmyra, the line of fortifications headed east for 1OO kilometres and then drove directly north to meet the Euphrates. A number of forts (most have now disappeared) were found along the desert steppe country. The first, 27 kilometres east-northeast of Palmyra along the road leading to the Euphrates, is Erek (classical Harac). Poidebard's description could indicate this fortification was from the era of Diocletian but no photos or plans were provided and no subsequent evidence has been. 28 The next fort at Hlehleh (ancient Helela, 20 kilometres northeast of Erek) is identified by Poidebard through the consonance of the ancient (Notifia Dignitatum) and modem Arab names. There is no physical evidence which could be used to determine whether the Notifia Dignitatum site was in use earlier, under Diocletian. Another 20 kilometres to the northeast, at Sikhne, the modem (and ancient) roads a~ p1. l.Xlmb) hœlll Oormm 4'GIMllÎllll.I Il: soma of th.a nmllumi doomt ccomd Ibo pl!: Bpaulino li:a1>ws md pi~ - . . of St Sargila -~ havl>yieldod valulblo Ibo Gammplm oflho

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