Obsidio Hatrae
About
Trajan personally led the siege of this fortified desert city, but Hatra's archers and defenders rained down fire and arrows that reportedly wounded Trajan himself and forced a Roman withdrawal. It was the emperor's last major military operation before his death later that same year. Hatra's successful defense marked the practical limit of Rome's eastward expansion under Trajan. His successor Hadrian abandoned the eastern conquests entirely within months.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
In ancient writing
- Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.31
The desert city holds out against Trajan; the heat, the flies and the sudden storms do more damage to the besiegers than the defenders.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →