Greetings all,
In the news, the discovery of a 5th century Byzantine church in the ancient city of Carrhae (now Harran in modern Turkey):
Carrhae
had a lot of Roman history, most of it bad. This was the site of the
Battle of Carrhae where Crassus suffered one of the worst defeats in
Roman history. It was later taken for Rome under Septimius Severus. The
Emperor Caracalla was later murdered here. Later the Emperor Julian
stopped here on his way to Persia to consult the Oracle of Luna. The
omens were bad and he went anyway. The city actually remained pagan
until the 11th century.
This
Byzantine church must have had a hard time of it, and certainly must
have suffered under the pagan and Islamic mix which held the city from
640 AD onward.
-Marcus Cassius Julianus
www.byzantiumnovum.org
No comments:
Post a Comment