Dara (Mesopotamia)

Coordinates: 37°10′40″N 40°56′28″E / 37.17778°N 40.94111°E / 37.17778; 40.94111
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Daras" redirects here. For the surname, see Daras (surname).
Dara
Δάρας (in Greek)
Late Antiquity
EventsBattle of Dara
Fall of Dara

Dara or Daras (

Catholic titular see. Today, the village of Dara, in the Mardin Province
occupies its location.

History

Foundation by Anastasius

During the

Sassanid Persians. According to the Syriac Chronicle of Zacharias of Mytilene, the Roman generals blamed their difficulties on the lack of a strong base in the area, as opposed to the Persians, who held the great city of Nisibis (which until its cession in 363 had served the same purpose for the Romans).[2]

Therefore, in 505, while the Persian King

dux Mesopotamiae
.

Reconstruction by Justinian

Remains of the cisterns

According to

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I was compelled to undertake extensive repairs to the city, afterwards renaming it Iustiniana Nova.[3] The walls were rebuilt and the inner wall raised by a new storey, doubling its height to about 20 m (66 ft). The towers were strengthened and raised to three stories (ca. 35 m) high, and a moat dug out and filled with water.[4]

Justinian's engineers also diverted the nearby river

St Bartholomew.[8]

Later history

The city was later

Khosrau II after the Roman-Persian treaty in 591. It was taken again by Khosrau II in 604–05 after a nine-month siege, recovered again for the Roman Empire by Heraclius
. Finally captured in 639 by the Arab Muslims, the city then lost its military significance, declined and was eventually abandoned.

Modern history

Dara became the site of massacre during the Armenian genocide. According to some reports, the cisterns were filled with the bodies of slaughtered Armenians from Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Erzurum in the spring and summer of 1915.[9]

Ecclesiastical history

Archbishopric

The new city became the seat of a Christian bishop and was at first a

suffragans : Rhesaina (also called Theodosiopolis), Rhandus and Nasala.[10]

Its first known bishop was Eutychianus, who took possession in 506. His successor, Thomas, was deposed in 519 for his opposition to the Council of Chalcedon and died in 540. Mamas was removed in 537. Stephanus took part in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.

After the

7th-century Arab conquest, Dara again became the seat of Jacobite (Syriac Orthodox) bishops.[11][12] Between 825 and 860, the archbishop was John of Dara, a prolific theologian. In the 10th century, Syriac Orthodox Diocese of Dara lost its Metropolitan rank, which passed to its former suffragan Rhesaina.[13]

Titular Catholic see

No longer a residential bishopric, Dara is now listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, both Latin and in particular for the Syriac Catholic Church, which, though of the West Syriac Rite, is in full communion with the Holy See.[14]

The diocese was nominally restored in the 15th century as the Latin Catholic

titular bishopric
of Dara.

As such, it has the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :

  • Hubert Léonard,
    Carmelite Order
    (O. Carm.) (1474.11.16 – 1489.07.06) and again (1492.12.03 – ?)
  • Blasius de Aguinaga (1669.09.09 – ?)
  • Nicolás de Ulloa y Hurtado de Mendoza,
    Augustinian Order
    (O.E.S.A.) (1677.02.08 – 1679.11.27)
  • Francisco Zapata Vera y Morales (1680.03.11 – 1703.04.23)
  • Franz Engelbert Barbo von Waxenstein (1703.06.04 – 1706.12.25)

In 1925 it was renamed and Promoted as Metropolitan

Titular archbishopric
of Dara.

It has been vacant for decades, having had the following incumbents of that (highest) rank :

Established as Titular bishopric of Anastasiopolis, suppressed without incumbent, restored in 1979 as

titular bishopric
of Dara Syrorum (Dara of the Syriacs, or just Dara in Curiate Italian).

It has had the following incumbents, of both the lowest (episcopal) and intermediary (archiepiscopal) ranks :

See also

  • Mt. Izla

References

  1. ^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Dara — ܕܪܐ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 30, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/67.
  2. ^ a b c Zacharias of Mytilene, Syriac Chronicle, Book VII, Chapter VI
  3. ^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.1.11-13
  4. ^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.1.14-21
  5. ^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.2
  6. ^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.3.16-21
  7. ^ Smith 1971, pp. 54f.; Schnitter 1987a, p. 13; Schnitter 1987b, p. 80; Hodge 1992, p. 92; Hodge 2000, p. 332, fn. 2
  8. ^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.3.26
  9. ^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 364, 375, 378.
  10. ^ Echos d'Orient X, 1907, pp. 144-145
  11. ^ Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. II, coll. 997-998, and 1427-1430
  12. ^ Raymond Janin, v. Dara in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XIV, Paris 1960, coll. 83-84
  13. ^ Echos d'Orient X, 1907, p. 96
  14. ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1
    ), p. 879

Sources and external links

Primary sources

Secondary sources

  • Brian Croke, James Crow: Procopius and Dara, in: Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983), p. 143–159.
  • Italo Furlan, Accertamenti a Dara, Padua 1984
  • Michael Whitby: Procopius' description of Dara ("Buildings" II 1-3), in: The defence of the Roman and Byzantine East. Proceedings of a colloquium held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986, Oxford 1986, S. 737–783.
  • Gunnar Brands: Ein Baukomplex in Dara-Anastasiopolis, in: Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 47 (2004), pp. 144–155.
  • Christopher Lillington-Martin, "Archaeological and Ancient Literary Evidence for a Battle near Dara Gap, Turkey, AD 530: Topography, Texts & Trenches", British Archaeological Reports (BAR) –S1717, 2007 The Late Roman Army in the Near East from Diocletian to the Arab Conquest Proceedings of a colloquium held at Potenza, Acerenza and Matera, Italy (May 2005) edited by Ariel S. Lewin and Pietrina Pellegrini with the aid of Zbigniew T. Fiema and Sylvain Janniard.
    ISBN 978-1-4073-0161-7
    . (pages 299-311).

Arch dam

External links

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