The Dara problem

[Jim Webster]

I was looking at refighting the Battle of Dara, 530AD



As you can see the trenches are rather important.

Procopius actually says

"Not far from the gate which lies opposite the city of Nisibis, about a stone's throw away, they dug a deep trench with many passages across it. Now this trench was not dug in a straight line, but in the following manner. 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."

When you stop to think about it this can mean they went like this
                     -----------------
                    l                     l
----------------l                     l--------------------------

                         The city

or like this


---------------l                      l------------------------
                   l-----------------l
                     
                     The city

I've looked at various sources and secondary works and seen both put forward, and wondered if anybody has any comments

Jim

[aligern]

You want The article by Christopher Lillington Martin on Dara. He is the acknowledged expert having visited the site and reworked the account of the battle. I recall that one of his main conclusins was that the actual battle was much farther from the walls of Dara.

Roy

https://www.academia.edu/206507/Archaeological_and_Ancient_Literary_Evidence_for_a_Battle_near_Dara_Gap_Turkey_AD_530_Topography_Texts_and_Trenches

[Jim Webster]

I've read his article already, I do like his thinking and it makes a lot of sense, but it doesn't actually answer the question, he shows the map with the infantry back and the cavalry forward (as in the wiki)  but as far as I can make out doesn't present any evidence for this.

The problem I have is that if you have the infantry back and the cavalry forward, when the Persians advance the huns, lurking ready to fall on the flanks of any cavalry which sweep past, are trapped between the Sassanid centre and the Roman centre where you'd expect a very serious missile exchange. Not only that but they're blatantly obvious to everyone.

If you have the Infantry forward and the cavalry back then the Huns are behind the infantry and are not likely to be seen or caught in the crossfire that is specifically mentioned.
Given that the frontage of the battle that he gives is 2km wide,  the infantry are going to be pretty tightly packed so even without trenches the Huns are going to struggle to pass through them.

Jim

[aligern]

Did you look at the map in the Battle Maps section of this site Jim?
Roy

[Jim Webster]

I looked at it but frankly that map doesn't fit with Procopius. He gives 'a rather short' central section which means the flank sections should be longer.

The map I downloaded has the 'rather short' central section being longer than the other two sections put together.
The version I'm toying with has the 'rather short' being at the most 600m out of the 2000m available of the battlefield.

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

One way to approach this would be to ask what Belisarius was trying to do.  Which part of the Persian army was he trying to set up to be snookered?

A refused central entrenchment would presumably be intended to draw the Persian centre into a three-way archery 'killing zone'.  While very useful if the Persians cooperated, this would do nothing about the Persian wings.

An advanced central entrenchment would encourage the Persian wings to advance and close round the exposed Byzantine centre.  This would set up one or both wings for a flanking surprise.

Which accords best with Procopius' account?

[Jim Webster]

Having just played the game twice 

If the wings are forward, the Byzantine cavalry get shot up badly by Sassanid foot archers unless the legionaries come out from behind their trenches, or the Byzantine cavalry abandon their tenches.

If you are thinking of fighting the battle I'd recommend the infantry centre forward. They'll hold up the Sassanid cavalry and the Roman horse can come up to help them with missile fire.

In two games there hasn't been a lot of close combat (Impetus)

Jim

[aligern]

I can see the logic of 'centre forward' it makes it much easier for cavalry deployed in front of the trench to get back in via gaps that are protected by the advanced centre, whereas with centre withdrawn advanced cavalry are pouring into the same smallish zone and are more likely to get caught.

[Jim Webster]

I played the game twice under Impetus. The Byzantine cavalry were CL (Lh(S) under DBMM) and actually it worked well.

Initially the Sassanids tried to concentrate their fire on infantry who were forward. After a while I had to send the Cavalry forward, they'd shoot at the Sassanids, and when the Sassanids returned fire they'd evade (You can evade from being shot at under Impetus, it reduces the chance of suffering damage)
So there was a lot of ebb and flow

With regard the trenches, it's bad to know how big an obstacle they were. In the end I counted them as broken ground for cavalry, so they moved at half speed and were disordered if they ended up in the trench but had them automatically reform once they were out of it. If you charged anybody across the trench you lost your Impetus.
For Infantry there was just the delay, no disorganisation.

Jim

[aligern]

Trenches are used in two other battles in Procopius, Once Hepthalites versus Sasanians, once Sasanians  vRomans. I think I remember that correctly. What lessons are there in those instances?
To what extent could they have influenced the thinking of eother side at Dara?

Roy

[Jim Webster]

One article I read suggests that Procopius was referring ironically back to the Sassanid disaster against the Huns, even down to the Sassanid commander having the same name in both battles (apparently the name translates as 'Victory'
which adds another layer of irony

Jim