Mesopotamian Revolt of the Kitos War
About
Nisibis, Edessa, and Seleucia rose against Rome's newly declared province of Mesopotamia in 116, the fourth front of the empire-wide Kitos War alongside Cyrenaica, Egypt, and Cyprus. Trajan's Moorish cavalry general Lusius Quietus stormed Nisibis, then took Edessa street by street and burned it after fierce resistance. Quietus's brutal success here won him the governorship of Judaea, where he crushed that province's own revolt the following year.
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 68.30
Describes the Mesopotamian cities' revolt and Lusius Quietus's recapture and sack of Nisibis and Edessa.
Sources
Nearby
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