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Simmas
Simmas () was a Hunnic general in the service of the Byzantine Empire, serving as ''dux'' (regional military commander). Active in the early 6th century, he fought at the Battle of Dara, commanding six hundred horseman along with fellow Hun commander Ascan, and played a fundamental role in the Byzantine victory. Biography He fought for the Byzantines against the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of Dara in 530 AD, alongside fellow Hun commanders Aïgan, Ascan, and Sunicas. He and Ascan commanded the right-hand Hunnic cavalry force, whereas Aïgan and Sunicas commanded the left wing of the Hunnic cavalry. During the battle, the Sasanian commander, Perozes, had concentrated his Immortals against the Byzantines to his left. The Byzantine generals countered this by stopping the action of Aïgan and Sunicas on the left and sending them to the right, where they joined Simmas and Ascan. The Huns were also backed by drafts from the center of the army. The Persians charged on, driving the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Callinicum
The Battle of Callinicum took place on Easter Saturday, 19 April 531 AD, between an army of the Byzantine Empire under Belisarius and a Sasanian cavalry force commanded by Azarethes. After being defeated at the Battle of Dara, the Sasanians moved to invade Roman Syria in an attempt to turn the tide of the war. Belisarius' rapid response foiled the plan, and his troops pushed the Persians to the Syrian border through maneuvering before forcing a battle in which the Sasanians won a Pyrrhic victory. Prelude In April 531 AD, the Persian king Kavadh I sent an army under Azarethes, consisting of a cavalry force numbering about 15,000 Aswaran with an additional 5,000 Lakhmid Arab cavalry under Al-Mundhir, to invade Syria, not through the heavily-fortified frontier cities of Roman Mesopotamia, but through the less conventional but also less-defended route in Commagene in order to capture Syrian cities such as Antioch. The Persian army crossed the frontier at Circesium on the Euphrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Dara
The Battle of Dara was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanians in 530 AD. It was one of the battles of the Iberian War. Procopius's account of this engagement is among the most detailed descriptions of a late Roman battle. Background The Byzantine Empire was at war with the Sassanids from 527, supposedly because Kavadh I had tried to force the Iberians to become Zoroastrians. The Iberian king fled from Kavadh, but Kavadh tried to make peace with the Byzantines, and attempted to have Justin I adopt his son Khosrau. Justin agreed, but on the terms that he would do so only in a rite reserved for barbarians. This failed to satisfy Kavadh, who attacked Byzantine allies, so Justin sent his generals Sittas and Belisarius into Persia, where they were initially defeated. In 529, the failed negotiations of Justin's successor Justinian prompted a Sassanian expedition of 40,000 men towards Dara. The next year, Belisarius was sent back to the region alongside Hermogenes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ascan
Ascan (died 19 April 531) was a Byzantine ''dux'' of Hunnish descent. He fought at the Battle of Dara in 530, and at the Battle of Callinicum one year later, where he put up a brave fight when his flank was exposed, dying on the field. Biography He was one of several warriors of Hunnic descent fighting for the Byzantine Empire; the Huns were known to "fight like tigers when driven to bay" and to "die sword in hand". Ascan fought at the Battle of Dara in 530 AD, where he commanded 600 horsemen (constituting the right-hand Hunnic cavalry force) together with fellow Hunnic commander Simmas. He, Simmas and the other two Hunnic commanders, Sunicas and Aïgan, played a fundamental role in the Roman victory of this battle. He led the greater part of the Byzantine cavalry, made up of cataphracts, at the Battle of Callinicum. Here, the Persians tried to defeat the Romans as they had in vain attempted at Dara, by deploying their cavalry to try and attack a weak spot in the Roman army. Beli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunicas
Sunicas ( el, Σουνίκας) was a Hun who served in the Byzantine military during the Iberian War, in the early reign of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565). Biography According to Zacharias of Mytilene, Sunicas was a Hun who fled to the Byzantine Empire, where he was baptized. By 527, he was an officer stationed at the fortress of Dara in Mesopotamia along with Simmas, and defended it against Sassanid Persian attacks.. In 530, he appears as a ''dux'', although it is not clear whether he held the territorial command of ''dux Mesopotamiae'' or if he just received the title. In this capacity, he participated at the great Byzantine victory in the Battle of Dara in June 530, where, along with Aigan, he commanded a 600-strong unit of Hun cavalry stationed on the Byzantine left flank. During the battle, Sunicas's Huns repelled the Persian attack on the Byzantine left and were then sent by Belisarius, the Byzantine commander, to reinforce the threatened right flank. There, Sunicas kil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pannonia
Pannonia (, ) was a province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located in the territory that is now western Hungary, western Slovakia, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Name Julius Pokorny believed the name ''Pannonia'' is derived from Illyrian, from the Proto-Indo-European root ''*pen-'', "swamp, water, wet" (cf. English ''fen'', "marsh"; Hindi ''pani'', "water"). Pliny the Elder, in '' Natural History'', places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum, the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia and Dacia (now Romania). He also gives us some dramaticised description of its composition, in which the proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them (''inter se rixantes''). He mentions its gigantic oaks. But even he—if the passage in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iberian War
Iberian refers to Iberia. Most commonly Iberian refers to: *Someone or something originating in the Iberian Peninsula, namely from Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. The term ''Iberian'' is also used to refer to anything pertaining to the former Kingdom of Iberia, an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli. Iberian Peninsula *Iberians, one of the ancient Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (not to be confused with the Celtiberians) ** Iberian language, the language of the ancient Iberians **Iberian scripts, the writing scripts of the ancient Iberians ***Northeastern Iberian script ***Southeastern Iberian script *** Greco–Iberian alphabet **Basque and Iberian deities ** Iberian weapons *Iberian mountain range or Sistema Ibérico * South-Western Iberian Bronze, Bronze Age culture of southern Portugal and nearby areas of Spain *Iberian Union, a personal union between the crowns of Spain and Portugal from 1580 to 1640 Ibero-America *Ibero-America, a term since the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generals Of Justinian I
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77489?rskey=dCKrg4&result=1 (accessed May 11, 2021) The term ''general'' is used in two ways: as the generic title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the 16th century, as a shortening of ''captain general'', which rank was taken from Middle French ''capitaine général''. The adjective ''general'' had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. Today, the title of ''general'' is known in some countries as a four-star rank. However, different countries use different systems of stars or other insignia for senior ranks. It has a NATO rank sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Malalas
John Malalas ( el, , ''Iōánnēs Malálas''; – 578) was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey). Life Malalas was of Syrian descent, and he was a native speaker of Syriac who learned how to write in Greek later in his life. The name ''Malalas'' probably derived from the Aramaic word (ܡܰܠܳܠܰܐ ''malolo'') for "rhetor", "orator"; it is first applied to him by John of Damascus. The alternative form ''Malelas'' is later, first appearing in Constantine VII. Malalas was educated in Antioch, and probably was a jurist there, but moved to Constantinople at some point in Justinian I's reign (perhaps after the Persian sack of Antioch in 540); all we know of his travels from his own hand are visits to Thessalonica and Paneas. Writing He wrote a ''Chronographia'' () in 18 books, the beginning and the end of which are lost. In its present state it begins with the mythical history of Egypt and ends with the expedition to Roman Africa under the tribune ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhic Victory
A Pyrrhic victory ( ) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress. The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC destroyed much of his forces, forcing the end of his campaign. Etymology ''Pyrrhic victory'' is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC and the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC, during the Pyrrhic War. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius: In both Epirote victories, the Romans suffered greater casualties but they had a much larger pool of replacements, so the casualties had less impact on the Roman war effort than the losses of King Pyrrhus. The report is often quoted as or Examples War This list comprises examples of b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perozes
Perozes ( el, Περόζης, from Middle Persian ''Pērōz'') was the Sassanid Persian general opposing the Byzantines under Belisarius at the Battle of Dara (530). According to the description of the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea, he was "a Persian, whose title was "''mirranes''" (for thus the Persians designate this office), Perozes by name". ''Mirranes'' () however probably refers not to an office, but to the House of Mihran, one of the seven great noble clans of the Sassanid Empire.Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), p. 991 After his defeat at Dara, he was disgraced by the Persian shah Kavadh I. Nothing else is known of his life. He may however be identical to the ''mirranes'' who according to ProcopiusProcopius, ''The Buildings''II.2.19/ref> tried to lay siege to Dara during the Anastasian War The Anastasian War was fought from 502 to 506 between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire. It was the first major conflict between the two powers since 440, and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard-bearer
A standard-bearer, also known as a flag-bearer is a person (soldier or civilian) who bears an emblem known as a standard or military colours, i.e. either a type of flag or an inflexible but mobile image, which is used (and often honoured) as a formal, visual symbol of a state, prince, military unit, etc. This can either be an occasional duty, often seen as an honour (especially on parade), or a permanent charge (also on the battlefield); the second type has even led in certain cases to this task being reflected in official rank titles such as Ensign, Cornet and Fähnrich. Role of the standard-bearer In the context of the Olympic Games, a flagbearer is the athlete who carries the flag of their country during the opening and closing ceremonies. While at present a purely ceremonial function, as far back as Roman warfare and medieval warfare the standard-bearer had an important role on the battlefield. The standard-bearer acted as an indicator of where the position of a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immortals (Sasanian Empire)
The Immortals was an elite cavalry unit of the army of the Sasanian Empire with the alleged size of 10,000 men, similar to the Achaemenid "Immortals" described by Herodotus. The name is derived from a term used by Roman historians to refer to the unit. Armenian and Islamic sources also have allusions to elite unit(s) in the Sasanian army. History The "Immortals" (Greek: ''Athanatoi'') is a name used by Roman historians of the Roman-Persian Wars to refer to an elite unit of the army of the Sasanian Empire. Some of these sources claim the unit was composed of 10,000 cavalrymen. The reported Greek name and the size of the force is identical to the "Immortals" infantry unit of the Achaemenid Empire described by Herodotus. The name "Immortals" has been used by Greek-language works of Roman historians Procopius (describing the Battles of Thannuris and Dara), John Malalas (describing the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422), Theophanes, and the lexicographer Hesychius, with the not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
