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- [00:01]
William Dalrymple
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter. Sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:19]
Peter Sarris
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- [00:51]
Anita Anand
When did.
- [00:51]
Peter Sarris
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- [01:24]
Anita Anand
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Peter Sarris
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- [01:52]
Anita Anand
Hello and welcome to Empire with.
- [01:54]
William Dalrymple
Me, Anita Ananda and me, William Duranpool.
- [01:58]
Anita Anand
So as our series on the history of Gaza progresses, we're now going to look at one of the great golden ages of the area, and that is late antiquity. Now that actually is a period when most of the Mediterranean world was experiencing a dark age of decline and disintegration. But conversely, in Gaza, this was a time of great prosperity and intellectual flourishing.
- [02:22]
William Dalrymple
For even as the Romans were abandoning Britain and the Western Empire bled under the assaults of the Goths and the Vandals and the Huns and all those sorts of peoples, Gaza improbably perhaps found a new role for itself as a center of literary and intellectual achievement, as well as being a major port famous for the export of frankincense, perfume and sweet wine. This is gonna be a very different episode from the succession of catastrophes which we went through as the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the Greeks all came and smashed up Gaza. Because this is going to be a period of stability, prosperity and growth. And here to tell us about it is another great friend of the show and one of my favorite historians, Peter Sarris, professor of late antique, Medieval and Byzantine Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of Justinian emperor, soldier, and St. Peter.
- [03:15]
Anita Anand
So good to have you back. I mean, you were brilliant talking about Helena and Theodora, and I love, you know, very strong women. As anyone who listens to this podcast knows.
- [03:23]
William Dalrymple
We never ever heard that before. Anita, this is a new revelation.
- [03:27]
Anita Anand
It's a secret, but sometimes I feel I ought to share. So, Peter, when we're talking about Gaza during this period, tell us how exactly it slid into the Christian period.
- [03:38]
Peter Sarris
Well, the transition of Gaza into the era of the Christian Roman Empire is one that will lead to enormous cultural efflorescence in the city. But it is in itself initially quite a a complicated and traumatic transition. The Christian Empire is establishing itself over the course of the fourth century, after the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in the very early 4th century, his foundation of a new capital for the Roman Empire at Constantinople. And then by the end of the fourth century, the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled from Constantinople, governing the lands of Anatolia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
- [04:24]
Anita Anand
And when we're talking about the early Christians of Gaza, I mean we're talking about converts, I guess. Converts from which parts and which backgrounds?
- [04:35]
Peter Sarris
Well, Christianity will take root in Gaza extremely slowly. So the sense one has is that until the late 4th century, the emergent Christian community of Gaza is a largely rural population. We know that the earliest bishops appointed to Gaza, so the leaders of the Christian communities charged with looking after the interests of the Christians representing them to the emperors, are primarily operating in the area around Gaza rather than in the city of Gaza itself. So that's already suggesting we're dealing with a predominantly rural population. But when a new bishop is appointed to the city of Gaza itself, Saint Porphyrius is this St. Porphyrius? The Christian population of Gaza is estimated at only about 1%. Now, those Christians themselves will be individuals who have come to Christianity from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them will have adopted Christianity, made background in Judaism, others in the city itself are more likely to be adopting Christianity from a background in traditional Greco Roman paganism. And traditional Greco Roman paganism is very strong in the city of Gaza. I think that whereas the elite of the empire at large is converting to Christianity quite rapidly over the course of the second half of the fourth century, Gaza really appears to be somewhere where the traditional Paganism of the civic elite is much more resilient.
- [05:58]
William Dalrymple
Peter, just to clarify this so that everyone understands what we're talking is another sort of Mediterranean port situation, much like anywhere else around the East Mediterranean with a mix of different ethnic groups. Is that right?
- [06:10]
Peter Sarris
In Gaza in the 4th century, you're going to be dealing with in the city, the elite is going to be primarily Greek speaking. The lower class population are going to be primarily speakers of Aramaic, but you will also have merchants and traders from all over the Mediterranean world there. We also know that in the countryside, as well as there being a Jewish community, there are Samaritans in the countryside as well. So very ancient Near Eastern indigenous monotheistic community. So it's linguistically mixed, it's culturally mixed, but the elite has adopted the largely Greek speaking culture of the Hellenistic east, which then the Romans have consolidated.
- [06:50]
William Dalrymple
So, Peter, when we were talking to Joe Quinn in the last episode, she was saying how despite all this history of conquests and so on, that actually the DNA shown by archaeology of the people who are living in this region today are much the same as the people that were living at her period. So do we imagine that there's a sort of broad continuities despite all these empires coming and going? Persian, Babylonian, Roman and now Byzantine?
- [07:16]
Peter Sarris
Yes, one would expect a broad continuity, especially in the countryside, where one would find same families over generations working the land effectively, irrespective of which new masters they might be serving.
- [07:27]
Anita Anand
You mentioned Saint Porfirius. Now, those of us who didn't have the Catholic upbringing of William, or indeed maybe William as well, Peter has an Orthodox upbringing, Cypriot. Yes, that's what I remember from last time. What do we know about Saint Porphyrys? And also I've seen many iterations of his name, Saint Porphyry being another one. I mean, who was he and how should we address him?
- [07:47]
Peter Sarris
I think you could address him as you like, as long as you do so with sufficient reverence. So Porphyry is the anglicised version of the original Greek name Porphyrios, which is Latinized as Porphyrius. Porphyry or Porphyry is from probably quite a posh background in Thessaloniki, where I have my second home. So he comes from quite an upper class family in Thessaloniki and he inherits quite a lot of money, we're told, from his father, but he's already become quite a pious individual and he decides to give his money to the church and he goes off to Egypt, which is the emergent centre of the monastic movement in the Mediterranean world. And he becomes a monk. So this is clearly a man with a very strong spiritual calling. After training as a monk in Egypt, he then heads to Jerusalem where he again lives a spiritual life, living off arms he's given by Christian pilgrims and also we're told, working as a cobbler. Now at around this point, we're dealing now with the year 395. The Bishopric, the see of Gaza becomes vacant and Porphyrius is appointed to the see. He's made the new bishop of Gaza. Now in many ways he's not a very good candidate for it in that coming from Thessaloniki, he doesn't really know. He's very unlikely to know the native language of much of the population, Aramaic. He'll have Greek, we assume he's got some decent Latin. There's a lot of Latin spoken in Thessaloniki. He's got no real previous experience of church leadership and he. Given how strong the pagan community is in Gaza, my suspicion is that he's sort of regarded as a, you know, he's not really a high flyer and they think they may as well give this very difficult task to someone who just to do their best. But they haven't really got many prospects of getting very far with it given the strength of paganism there.
- [09:37]
Anita Anand
From cobbler to sort of rabble rousing bishop in many respects because he does manage to stir up a crowd. And there is a story about him leading a monastic mob to destroy the temple of Zeus. Tell us a bit more about that.
- [09:51]
Peter Sarris
Well, when he turns up, I think he is struck by the intensity of the hostility he meets on the part of the pagan population of Gaza. Not just in terms of the civic elite but also the peasants of the surrounding countryside. So we're told, for example in the biography, the life of him that survives when he lands at the nearby port town of Mayuma, which then feeds the city of Daza, that the local peasants have sort of strewn the road he has to follow to the city with thorns and brambles to make his arrival as unpleasant as possible. He then turns up and he has all sorts of rows with the civic elite. When his steward Baruch has goes out to the countryside to collect rents from the peasants working church estates, he gets beaten up. So there's unremitting hostility from pagan high and low alike.
- [10:38]
William Dalrymple
To clarify, Peter, this is because everywhere else around the Mediterranean temples are being knocked down and replaced by churches and they don't want that to happen in their town.
- [10:46]
Peter Sarris
At around the time that Palfrey has been appointed bishop, the emperor Theodosius has not only made now Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, but has also ordered the closing of temples. Now, to what extent those temples are closed down on the ground will depend a lot on the relations between local governors and local elites and local power relations. But clearly the pagan elite of Gaza are anxious and treats the arrival of a new bishop with considerable hostility and suspicion. Now, faced with that hostility, what Porphyry or Porphyrios does is he makes two embassies to Constantinople. And this is where we get to one of your powerful women. It's a very important figure here.
- [11:29]
William Dalrymple
She's perking up.
- [11:31]
Anita Anand
Go on.
- [11:31]
Peter Sarris
So he makes two embassies to Constantinople, by which point the emperor in Constantinople is a rather lacklustre emperor called Arcadius, his brother Honoris, ruling the western part of the Roman Empire, Arcadius ruling to the east. But Arcadius has married a woman called Eudoxia, who takes her Christianity extremely seriously and who has got into a series of arguments, in fact, with the head of the Church in Constantinople, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the wonderfully named John Chrysostom, the golden mouthed he and those around him like their high living too much. He's a much more puritanical, hardline Christian figure. And Porphyry manages to get access to the empress via a Christian courtier and persuades her to persuade the Emperor to issue an order insisting that the new anti pagan legislation be applied in Gaza and agreeing to provide him with soldiers to close the temples down. So in Gaza, it's not just going to be with the help of aggressive monks that he will go around closing down the pagan temples. He's able to turn up the troops from Constantinople and also troops from the nearby capital of maritime Caesarea.
- [12:42]
William Dalrymple
Peter. I think in Britain we have this idea of sort of very cosy images of medieval monks as sort of Friar Tuck figures with porches and pottering around with beehives and that kind of thing, but these early Christian monks of this period are quite sort of fundo thugs, aren't they? In Alexandria we've seen Cyril destroying places of learning and lynching lady philosophers in the streets and that kind of thing. They're militants.
- [13:08]
Peter Sarris
Yes, the early Church is a fundamentally sort of anti establishment, anti societal, anti authority movement. And that sort of charismatic authority within the early church has really been inherited by the leaders of the monastic movement who capture the popular imagination with the radicalism of their religious vision and who also represent the most hardcore and aggressive elements in the church at this time.
- [13:33]
Anita Anand
Gaza becomes then a magnet for, you know, the most zealous of the zealots, I suppose you could say, because then you know another monk who is pretty hard course, now known as Saint Hilarion, he joins the fray in Gaza. Tell us about him. Is he a local lad?
- [13:50]
Peter Sarris
Actually, the Saint Hilarion has been acted in Gaza slightly earlier than Porphyry. He's a local lad who again adopts Christianity and who will try to spread Christianity within the city somewhat earlier. There's a very interesting story. For example, we're told, as with all cities in the Roman east, the population of Gaza are obsessed with chariot racing. Yeah, chariot racing is the big sport everyone's obsessed with.
- [14:14]
William Dalrymple
It's the premier league of its day.
- [14:16]
Peter Sarris
Yeah, exactly. One of the teams in Gaza becomes associated with the Christians. And before one of the big races, Hilarion blesses the Christian chariot races with holy water and they win. And this is a great sort of boost to the fortunes of Christianity in the city earlier on. But Hilarion is responsible for founding a very important monastery near the city. And after Porphyry is closed down the temples there will be a monastic boom around Gaza. But what's really interested with the closing down of the temple is that. So you have the premier temple in Gaza, the so called Mar Neon. Initially, when Porphyry turns up with the soldiers, closing down the seven other temples is relatively straightforward. The soldiers are happy to do that. There are attempts made to make sure that the temple treasures aren't just stolen by the Christian locals. It's rather like the establishment of the monasteries in Tudor England. It's relatively orderly. But the closing down of the Mar Neon, the premier temple, this is much more sensitive and it requires a lot more cajoling on the part of Bishop Porphyry to get the troops to do it. And then there's the issue of what you do with the temple itself. There's a remarkable story told in the saint's life of There's a debate about whether you just turn the temple into a Christian church, such as has happened elsewhere. And then in a church service, supposedly a seven year old boy suddenly speaks as if the voice of God is coming through him, demanding that the temple be destroyed in its entirety as it is stained with the blood sacrifices. The boy does this in the local language of Aramaic, and he's then summoned before the bishop, who threatens to beat him if he's making this up, if someone's told him to say this. And the boy then supposedly miraculously speaks in Greek, which he's never been taught, once again demanding that the temple be destroyed. In its entirety. And this miracle story, the speaking in tongues, is reported. And it's that that then gives, as it were, Porphyry, the license, through the spreading of his story, to obliterate the pagan temple and build the great cathedral there. Now, as well as building the cathedral, there'll be other churches built. Porf is very keen to win local hearts and minds by also building charitable institutions, hospice for local pilgrims to visit, giving money to the poor, building a new processional way linking the cathedral to the other new Christian places of worship, so that lavish Christian ceremonies and processions on the streets can replace the pagan wand that have been so important to the life of the city. So as well as the acts of destruction, he's also trying to win hearts and minds through these charitable endeavors. And a lot of the charitable endeavors and the new church building is funded by the Empress Eudoxia, who has lent him the military support as well. So her support is absolutely crucial to this process of Christianization of the landscape.
- [16:59]
William Dalrymple
And Peter, just give us a very brief picture panning out in a sense from Gaza to the rest of Palestine. Suddenly now this land is filling with monks. The desert has become a city. That's the phrase that you see, isn't it?
- [17:10]
Peter Sarris
Yes. The area around Gaza will be one of the three greatest concentrations of monasticism in late Roman or Byzantine Palestine. You have the area around Gaza where we know archaeologically of around 15 very substantial monasteries that are built across the 5th into the 6th centuries. We have a massive investment in monasteries in Jerusalem itself and then increasingly in Judean desert as we're moving out now. Whereas the monasteries of the Judean desert are isolated, they attract pilgrims, but they're sort of monasteries in the desert, away from civilization, centers of asceticism and withdrawal. The monasteries around Gaza are much more involved in the social and economic life of the region, much more involved with the life of both the peasantry and the urban elite. These monasteries around Gaza are very important centers for viticulture, for wine production. And we have a marvellous series of letters exchanged between monks from Gaza. This character Basta Nufius, and his correspondent John of Gaza, who are referred to as the two Old Men of Gaza. And their letter correspondence helps us to establish there's a very interesting network between these different monasteries, discussing religious affairs, spiritual affairs, but also with members of local society, both high and low, approaching them for advice to do with the most rudimentary and day to day concerns. It's sort of a sort of self help clinic as well as a place to go to for religious advice as well.
- [18:40]
William Dalrymple
Peter In Egypt, the monks often have a reputation as being anti scholarly. St. Anthony has some quote about how that you only need to read one book, the Bible, that you don't need to read anything else. But in Gaza you get the impression that the monks are part of a new wave of learning that now takes over. And there's the school of rhetoric, there's this extraordinary growth of Gaza as a place you send your kids to be educated, suddenly becomes the sort of the Harvard or the Yale or the Oxford and Cambridge of the region.
- [19:09]
Peter Sarris
Gaza has clearly a very rich intellectual infrastructure, I think fed partly by its very close proximity to Egypt and Alexandria. One of the great advantages of Gaza is it's at the crossroads between Egypt, Syria and Palestine in an economic sense, but also in an intellectual sense. And Alexandria is one of the great centres of learning in the ancient world. And almost all of the figures we know to play an important part in the intellectual life of Gaza have been through or have associations with Alexandria. Now in Alexandria, learning is very much associated with the old gods and paganism and attracts a great deal of hostility on the part of hardline elements in the Egyptian church, for whom even having sort of statues of pagan gods in your garden because you think they look nice are regarded as signs of crypto paganism. So even a sort of classicizing taste is regarded with great suspicion by hardline Egyptian monks. In Gaza, as you say, a very different culture seems to be emerging where some of the early monastic leaders are clearly men of considerable culture themselves. And we see them corresponding with teachers at the schools of Gaza and also interestingly in Gaza in a way that would have been inconceivable in some other parts of the empire. By the time we reach the early 6th century, the leading intellectual figures who are teaching classical Greek texts, Greek rhetoric to the posh young men of the city also seem to be instructing them in Christian scripture. In a way, this is very unusual now, I think the way in which these teachers, we have this character, for example, Procopius of Gaza, who writes important biblical commentaries as well as very classicizing literary works depicting the world of the old gods. I think someone like Procopius of Gaza is able to get away with playing with so many pagan classical mythologising motifs because he has such good Christian credentials as well. Well, and this is something that's very unusual in Gaza.
- [21:11]
Anita Anand
So that is a different. The one that you've spoken of, you know, the very learned Procopius is a different Procopius to the one we spoke about in your last visit, although it's.
- [21:19]
Peter Sarris
Not a terribly common name. Also active in the 6th century is one of the greatest historians to have written in the Greek language at any moment in its history, Procopius of Caesarea. Now that Caesarea is up the coast and is the capital of the province of Palestina Prima, in which Gaza sits as well. And these worlds are very interconnected. Now, Procopius is a very classicizing figure, very well educated in the world of classical Greek texts. His historical imagination is rooted in the writings of the likes of Thucydides and Herodotus. And it has been suggested by some that he may have received his rhetorical training, which is sort of the university element, as it were, of a young man's education. This period in Gaza, we have no hard proof for that, but it is a plausible suggestion.
- [22:05]
William Dalrymple
And so, Peter, you've got in Gaza now an institution. What is its standing relative? I mean, we all know the Library of Alexandria down the coast. Where does it stand in the hierarchy of great classical places of education by the 6th century?
- [22:18]
Anita Anand
Is it where everybody who's got a teenager seeks to send their teenager for an education like the Oxbridge, if you like? Is that where they want to go?
- [22:26]
Peter Sarris
I think we need to think of the School of Gaza more as a sort of circle and collection of scholars who hang around there, rather than an institution. It's a school in the same way as you can have a school of artists.
- [22:39]
William Dalrymple
Right, or the Bloomsbury Group.
- [22:40]
Peter Sarris
Yeah, exactly. Or the Bloomsbury Group, exactly. So what you have is clearly the library infrastructure, the education infrastructure, the wealth of the local elite is sufficient in Gaza to attract lots of scholars who operate there, who take on private pupils. But there is also an established, governmentally funded professorship based in Gaza, and the person who is regarded as the leading scholar is appointed to that position and sort of presides over the broader intellectual community. Now, what's very important, I think, in terms of creating a sort of a hock house environment intellectually in Gaza. I think part because the city is so wealthy and is still doing so well from inter regional trade and so on and so forth, is that a lot of the, the locally trained as well, the locally educated then remain in Gaza and forge their careers there. And then there's further investment in the cultural life of the city and its celebrations and its festivals than the both social and literary occasions as well.
- [23:36]
Anita Anand
Well, I think we should delve into that because we have somebody here, William Dalrymple, who knows a thing or two about literary festivals, but Gaza had a doozy of a literary festival. Join us after the break and we'll talk about that.
- [23:48]
Peter Sarris
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- [24:14]
William Dalrymple
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William Dalrymple
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- [25:05]
Anita Anand
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Peter Sarris
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- [25:17]
Anita Anand
Welcome back. So Gaza, you mentioned just before the break, was a site of festivals of learning and they had one in particular that I'm interested in. The Dionysin or Dionysian. Am I saying it properly? Dionysus, I know how to say. But Dionysian Festival of Roses. So what was that about? And what happened in that festival?
- [25:36]
William Dalrymple
It sounds quite saucy.
- [25:38]
Anita Anand
I mean it would be with Dionysus involved. I mean, is it sort of an erotic lip fest? Is that what we're talking about?
- [25:43]
Peter Sarris
The life of Gaza is punctuated by a whole series of festivals, all of which have pagan origins, but all of which seem to survive into the Christian era. And the so called Festival of the Roses, a spring festival, is one of the most richly recorded of these. Now it is possible, not certain, but it is possible. The Festival of the Roses that takes place in Gaza, which is associated with literary competitions, what have you, but also with lavish dining and parties, may be the same as a celebration referred to elsewhere in the empire as the Mayuma, which is a spring festival of Syrian origin, associated with aquatic competitions, with naked dancing, with swimming, with feasting, and which becomes a byword for lasciviousness and immorality on the part of Christian moralists.
- [26:40]
William Dalrymple
Yeah, the monks are not going to like this at all.
- [26:41]
Anita Anand
What I was just thinking what it's going to blow their robes off, isn't it?
- [26:45]
Peter Sarris
Well, exactly. Around the same time as Porphyry is trying to spread Christianity in the city of Gaza, the imperial authorities are also trying to crack down on these Myuma celebrations. Now we know that these Myuma celebrations are introduced, for example, in Italy to the city of Ostia, the port town of Ostia, by migrants from Gaza. And this is why it has been argued that the spring ceremony, the ceremony of the roses in Gaza is probably also including these rather orgiastic celebrations of the Myuma cult that we find described elsewhere in the Empire.
- [27:20]
William Dalrymple
I love this. And then of course, where you have orgiastic behavior, you've got to have wine. And one of the things we also read about at this period is Gaza wine. I went to the extraordinary Saved Treasures of Gaza exhibition in Paris last month and there you have this line of what they call torpedo amphorae or torpedo jars, which are these very distinctive jars with a kind of nipple at the bottom, large man size, 6 foot long amphorae which were full of sweet Gaza wine, which seems to be highly celebrated.
- [27:49]
Peter Sarris
Yes, Gaza was famous in the ancient world and still in the Byzantine world as producing by far the best wine in the Mediterranean.
- [27:57]
William Dalrymple
The Chateau Y Chem of its day.
- [27:59]
Peter Sarris
Exactly. A sort of Chateau Musard, given its sweet. I like to think it's the sort of the, the ancestor of the, of the Cypriot dessert wine Commandaria, which is then developed further by the Crusaders later on.
- [28:09]
William Dalrymple
We should stress your Cypriot background.
- [28:11]
Peter Sarris
Well, absolutely. It's everything good has a Cypriot connection at some point. Now what's interesting with the wine industry is not only the very high repute of Gazan wines, but also that as we see the growth of monasteries in the area, that the monasteries are very involved in wine production. A lot of our monasteries in this period in the 5th, 6th and early 7th centuries AD are actually very highly commercialized enterprises. And so part of this tension between Christian elites and pagan elites during the period of Christianization is actually probably the Church taking over a lot of the really good vineyards.
- [28:46]
Anita Anand
So we've got the wine, Peter, and you know, if you want to drink wine, you want to know that it's wine o'. Clock.
- [28:50]
Peter Sarris
Ha ha.
- [28:51]
Anita Anand
That's a terrible segue. But I do want to talk about the wondrous clock of Gaza. Now we talk about the two Procopiuses, and this is the brainchild of clever Procopius rather than smutty Procopius, the original Procopius, if you like. Tell me about this clock and why it was so wondrous and so famous in the ancient world.
- [29:07]
Peter Sarris
One of the problems with Gaza is that due to its very turbulent history, we have very little evidence for it archaeologically. But because of the literary school there, we do have these marvellous descriptions as a form of literature that they really specialise in, called the Ekrasis, which describes works of art or architectural monuments or what have you. This is something the school of Gaza really specializes in. And we have this marvellous account of this very complicated clock that stands in the centre of Gaza, which both celebrates the sun God and the labors of Hercules, with each hour being depicted by a separate labour of Hercules. It's clearly a very complex piece of. Of machinery, water powered.
- [29:51]
William Dalrymple
Right?
- [29:51]
Peter Sarris
Yeah, yeah. There's a great deal of very interesting research being done on the way in which the Romans and the Greeks specialize in these remarkable automata. Very little evidence for which survives physically into the modern world, but clearly world of remarkable complexity. So in a sense we have evidence for the. For the great sort of technical expertise and skill of Roman mechanical engineering. And what have you preserved in these literary texts?
- [30:17]
Anita Anand
Has anyone tried to remake it or make one like it?
- [30:20]
Peter Sarris
Not to my knowledge, but there have been certainly attempts to make so. For example, we also have very nice mosaic depictions of organs, for example, musical instruments as well, mechanically powered instruments that probably feeding off similar technology.
- [30:35]
William Dalrymple
Peter, we've got this picture of this very prosperous town. It has a reputation for monks, it has a reputation for orgies, it has a reputation for. For intellectuals. It's making delicious wine. What is sort of powering the economy? Is it still, as it was in the early period, frankincense and myrrh and perfumes coming in from the Red Sea and from Arabia and Gaza's role as.
- [30:57]
Anita Anand
A major port and the Nabateans still sort of dominating that trade? I mean, are they the ones who are doing this still?
- [31:03]
Peter Sarris
So Gaza in the 6th century is still profiting from its traditional role, a port area which is allowing for goods coming from the east, aromatics, spices, probably to some extent silk, entering the Mediterranean world. Now, I think the contours of that trade are changing in that over the course of the sixth century, you have a sort of a struggle between the Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople, and its great superpower rival, the Sasanian Empire of Persia, over control of Indian Ocean trade. And the Persians are with growing success, forcing more and more of that trade up the Persian Gulf. And the Romans are seeing less and less of that trade coming up the Red Sea. So we're going to see a strangulation of that trade coming from the East. So I think that aspect will start to decline in terms of Gaza's prosperity, but I think it's still very important in the early 6th century. I think the wine industry is crucial. And also Gaza is feeding off the factors that are leading to much greater, broad, broader prosperity in the Eastern Mediterranean. At this time in the 4th century, you've had the foundation of a magnificent new imperial capital at Constantinople. And this has led feeding Constantinople, trading with Constantinople. There's been a major boost to transportation across the Mediterranean by sea, to investment in trade by the sea lanes has sparked off a broader commercial expansion. You're also seeing a growing commercialization of the economy by virtue of the enter Constantine's minting of a magnificent new gold coinage. The solidus describes the dollar of the Middle Ages, which would be the greatest currency down to the 11th century, and also rising population levels. And Gaza and the area around it is able to profit from each and every one of these developments as well.
- [32:52]
William Dalrymple
And Peter, we had earlier images of the Nabateans coming in with sort of camels from the desert. Do we still imagine Gaza as the kind of terminus of caravan routes with people coming from the Hejaz as well as the Nabateans, with Arabs coming in?
- [33:08]
Peter Sarris
On the Egyptian side of the border, you have the port town of Pelusium. And a lot of trade is then traveling up the coastline. From Pelusium to Gaza, you either go west to Alexandria or you go east to Gaza. But also inland trade and a lot of contacts with the Arabian peoples beyond is still going to be very important and indeed, increasingly militarily important.
- [33:27]
William Dalrymple
Well, that's exactly it. This is what I'm trying to create a picture of because we're seeing in old accounts, in traditional accounts, were coming up to what are called the Arab invasions and the idea that the arrival of Islam at the end of this period. But you get the impression in a lot of more recent work that there are already Arabs coming as traders into Gaza. These nomads from the desert are bringing these goods in. And as things begin to get more rough and tumble in the 6th century, with the borders of Byzantium not being guarded as they once were, and the.
- [34:04]
Anita Anand
Persians are, you know, completely assaulting at any opportunity.
- [34:07]
William Dalrymple
Exactly. Coming in that, you get Arabs being drafted in as soldiers by Byzantine emperors like Justinian.
- [34:14]
Peter Sarris
So essentially what happens is in the early 6th century, we have the revival of warfare on a massive scale between the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, and its great superpower rival, the Sasanian Empire of Persia. Now, that warfare is the direct hot warfare between the two empires is essentially along the border that runs now between Syria and Iraq. But this hot war along that direct frontier also leads each empire to engage in what has been described as a sort of late antique version of the great game, whereby each empire is then vying for advantage in the Caucasus to the north and in Arabia to the south. And so the peoples of Arabia start to be drawn into the great superpower conflict between the Romans and the Persians. And particularly in terms of policing the frontier of southern Palestine, we start seeing the Romans investing very heavily in local Arabian military chieftains and lords. They are being converted to Christianity, they're being drawn into the imperial embrace that way. And a lot of imperial investment upgrading these Arabian leaders politically and militarily, but.
- [35:23]
Anita Anand
Also a massive program of rebuilding. As you know, you painted a picture of a 6th century which is in sort of tumult and it's dangerous, you know, and you've got instability now. So this man, Bishop Marcianus of Gaza, he is responsible for a massive rebuild. I mean, is it a fortification? Is it a beautification? Is it both things? What does he do?
- [35:42]
Peter Sarris
These are both things. With the revival of warfare with Persia, the imperial authorities invest very heavily in refortifying the region and its defence in depth. The imperial authorities are just sort of building fortiers along the direct frontier zone. You have building work and fortification all the way into the Sinai Peninsula, for example. But often, as we see in the case of, say, the monastery of St Catherines in Sinai, for example, monasteries can also serve as fortifications. And the distinction between these structures isn't always entirely apparent, even sometimes to archaeologists. So a lot of this building work is served, serving a dual purpose of civic investment, regional investment, but also fortification, with a lot of the building work being entrusted often to bishops as well as to governors by this stage, as.
- [36:29]
William Dalrymple
Well as Aramaic and the elite speaking Greek. You've probably got quite a few people in Gaza already now speaking a form.
- [36:35]
Peter Sarris
Of Arabic, A form of Arabic. Arab identity is something that is taking shape over this period. So quite often into the 6th and 7th centuries, we will often refer to these people as Arabians rather than Arabs. So Arab identities of work in progress at this time. And the form of Arabic that will be found for example with the rise of Islam in the Quran, scholars would argue is influenced by forms of proto Arabic we associate with the Nabateans and what have you. So that's showing that sort of connection to that earlier world you were talking about with Joe Quinn.
- [37:10]
William Dalrymple
And there's always this story that was it, the grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad had already led caravans to Gaza during this period, that this was a world that they knew.
- [37:20]
Peter Sarris
So by virtue of this growing Roman and Persian interest in Arabia strategically, we also have growing involvement with Arabia economically. And the region of the Hejaz, the area around Mecca, appears to be connected in trading relations with the world of Roman Palestine and Syria to the north. The Prophet Muhammad's family and Muhammad himself as opposed to of engaged in trading trips into Roman territory northwards. But also crucially, by virtue of the way in which Arabia is being drawn into this broader superpower struggle, we also start seeing much greater cultural and religious penetration of the thought world of Arabia. With the Romans trying to spread Christianity in the region, engaging in missionary activity amongst the Arabs or Arabians to try to draw them into a more pro Roman orbit. And with the Persians bolstering the region's non Christian and particularly Jewish communities. Jewish communities facing growing persecution in the Roman Empire and who are regarded therefore as more likely sources of support for the Persians in their imperial endeavours.
- [38:24]
Anita Anand
I mean you've got these sort of great bodies moving sort of around each other, these great ideologies. But then the Persians do invade Gaza and Jerusalem too, don't they?
- [38:33]
Peter Sarris
As I say, the early 6th century we have this major revival of warfare between the Roman and Persian empires and this escalates over the course of the century and culminates in the early 7th century when the Persians were able to take advantage of a civil war that breaks out in Constantinople to engage in the large scale conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. And in the year 626even tried to besiege Constantinople itself with the aid of some Hunnic style allies called the Avars. Now the loss of Jerusalem to the Persians in the year 614 and Palestine at large in that same year is a massive blow to imperial prestige. Not least because the Persians also seize the relic, the holiest relic in Christendom, the True Cross that had supposedly been discovered by the Empress Helena in the early 4th century. And they take the true Cross into captivity, as it were. They would have regarded as protection in Persia. In a brilliant feat of generalship, one of the most brilliant feats of generalship in the history of warfare, the Roman Emperor Heraclius manages to outmaneuver and outmarch the Persians in the Caucasus, strike into the heart of the Sassanian Empire in what is now Iraq, bearing down in their capital at Ctesiphon in modern Baghdad, and is able to bring down the Persian regime, is able to restore the true cross to Jerusalem, which he does in person in the year 630, and is able to restore the Roman Empire's old frontiers. But it's really a nominal restoration. And it's a restoration that is also associated with major recriminations and bitterness and struggle in Palestine itself, in that the area's Jewish community are regarded as having been in cahoots with the Persians. And the persecution of the area's Jewish population, which had been mounting under Christian Roman emperors, becomes particularly severe under this emperor, Heraclius.
- [40:25]
William Dalrymple
So then we have reports coming from southern Arabia that a new religious leader has turned up. This guy Muhammad, who's united all the tribes, has conquered great swathes of territory and getting as close to Gaza as Aqaba at the top of the Red Sea, with whose governor he signs a treaty. But Muhammad dies soon after, in 632, and no one expects that the southern Arabs would be in any sort of position to threaten the victorious army of the Byzantines. And then in 634, a local unit commander in Palestine named Sergius insults a group of Arab allies outside Gaza, refusing to pay them the money that they were owed for guarding the desert frontier. And according to one Byzantine chronicler, there were some nearby Arabs who received small payments from the emperor to guard the entrance of the desert. But in that time, some eunuch came to pay the soldiers, and the Arabs, according to custom, came to receive their pay. But the eunuch drove them out, saying that the ruler scarcely pays the soldiers, how much less these dogs aggrieved, the Arabs departed for their fellow tribesmen. These they led to the countryside of Gaza, the entrance being by the wastes of Mount Sinai. So we've got these Arabs suddenly coming out of the desert and they ambush the small Byzantine force sent against them. The history of Gaza is about to change forever and utterly. We've got Peter coming back in the next episode to take us through this very controversial period of the rise of Islam and the Islamic conquest of Palestine.
- [41:54]
Anita Anand
And if you want to hear that episode right now, just join the empire club uk.com that's empireclub uk.com and there's a way of listening to it right now without having the wait till the next time we meet. It's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.
- [42:08]
William Dalrymple
And goodbye from me, William Durimple.
- [42:17]
Peter Sarris
You are not luminous, Watson, but you are a conductor of light. Here they are. Dr. Mortimer, I presume? Yes. Hi, John. Dr. John Watson. Who is your client? He was my client, Sir Charles Baskerville. Keep reading.
- [42:44]
William Dalrymple
A local shepherd. Noted. I saw first that of the maid. Hugo Baskerville passed me thence on his black mare, and there behind him, running mute upon his track, such a hound of hell that, God forbid, should ever.
- [42:59]
Peter Sarris
Be at my heels. I wish I felt better in my mind about it. It's an ugly business, Watts. An ugly, dangerous business. And the more I see of it, unless I like it, I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street. Passport. Hello? Goal Hanger presents.
- [43:25]
William Dalrymple
You're not Sherlock Holmes. I'm Henry Baskerville from one of the.
- [43:29]
Peter Sarris
Biggest audio dramas of all time.
- [43:31]
William Dalrymple
Does it bother you?
- [43:32]
Peter Sarris
Like in a creepy kind of way? Like in there's an evil giant hound.
- [43:36]
William Dalrymple
That likes the taste of bad Baskerville's.
- [43:38]
Peter Sarris
Kind of way, the seminal gothic novel by Arthur Conan Doyle.
- [43:42]
William Dalrymple
They're watching.
- [43:43]
Peter Sarris
Who? Who? Who are watching? It's not safe. I could just make out its pitch black form. Welcome to deepest everything. A hellish void. Darkest. Who are you? This piercing yellow glow of eyes. Dartmoor. What do you want of giant?
- [44:03]
William Dalrymple
Fine.
- [44:05]
Peter Sarris
No. Sherlock and co. The hound of the Baskervilles.
- [44:12]
Anita Anand
Listen now.
- [44:14]
Peter Sarris
Five stars, says the I Paper. Hugely popular, says the Guardian. A successful reinvention of Holmes for a younger generation, says the Times. Search Sherlock & Co. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:28]
William Dalrymple
It.