RESAFA By Carol Miller

"Revel not in what you are but rather  seek what you may become." Lao Tse

The glittering ruins of Resafa, o al-Rassafa, "Roseph" in the Vulgate, "Sergiopolis" to the Romans, like a mirage, rise from the desert plain of the Khabur-Euphrates watershed, only forty kilometers from the great blue-green river, where once deer, partridge and quail shared green pastures with the sheep of the nomads' flocks.

Much of Resafa's wealth and prestige was, curiously, in the beginning attributed to its sheep. Woolen mills and looms produced great quantities of carded wool, yarn and finished textiles that would be included among the goods and products for which the region was celebrated, and which lent it a durable commercial supremacy on both the north-south and the east-west trade routes.

The idyllic setting -- with its citrus orchards, songbirds and flowering trees, from a time when the river valleys were indeed the "Fertile Crescent" -- is delicately portrayed, and preserved for posterity, in the mosaics unearthed in the ruins of the basilicas that once dotted a bustling cityscape and which thrived especially during the Byzantine centuries. And though the site was essentially identified with the Byzantines, Resafa, along with the famous textiles, were mentioned in a number of Assyrian texts dating from the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. and are, furthermore, specified in Isa. 37:12: Sennacherib boasts to Hezekiah that "I have captured this Resaph along with other pasturing towns". The Book of Kings also describes a site called Reseph, but refers to the Semitic word, Rasf, "a road".

The road in question was among the best traveled in its day, through one of the world's most populous and profitable yet undeniably remote regions, on the confluence of the caravan routes, with Doura Europos to the southeast, and Halab (Aleppo) to the west. Streams of traffic constantly converged on the massive walls. Resafa was in fact an important commercial appendage of Tadmor (Palmyra) to the south, especially during the first centuries of the Christian era, with the Euphrates serving as the frontier between the Parthians from Persia and the expanding imperial ambitions of Rome.

With this Resafa, in time, gained fame as a military as well as a commercial outpost, effectively resisting the raids of the Central Asian warriors coming off the steppes and out of the desert, or the Bedouins coveting new pasturelands. After the fall of Doura Europos to the Sassanid Persians in 256 A.D. Diocletian, proclaimed emperor in 284, further reinforced the installations at Resafa, while he reaffirmed his commitment to the persecution of Christians. In addition, at least according to the "official version", he effectively sealed Resafa's fate, in 305, by condemning two Syrian officers in the Roman army. It would seem that committed Christians Sergius and Bacchus were put to death for refusing to sacrifice to Jupiter, thus propitiating their eventual beatification and the obsessive devotion, initially just among the local shepherds and villagers, to Resafa as a cult site. The story goes on to claim that the pious Byzantines, in the wake of the locals, as time passed considered the desert fortress with a reverence that rapidly spread throughout Syria. If this was the case it was due in part to a growing support among pre-Islamic Arab groups, such as the Ghasanid, whose king Al-Munther, enthralled with Resafa and enraptured by its Christian martyrs, built his palace within the precinct.

However, according to professor David Woods of the University College of Cork (UCC) in Ireland - a specialist on the subject of military martyrs and late Roman military history-- in his paper "The Origin of the Cult of SS. Sergius and Bacchus" (from "The Emperor Julian and the Passion of Sergius and Bacchus", in the Journal of Early Christian Studies 5, 1997), "the passion of Sergius and Bacchus purports to describe the deaths of two members of the imperial bodyguard". The paper establishes that these guards served under the eastern Roman emperor Galerius Maximianus (305-311 A.D.), Bacchus at Barbalissus and Sergius at Resafa, at that time known as the late Roman province of "Augusta Euphratensis".

Yet, claims Woods, "Although archaeology has proven that Resafa was the focus for an important cult of Sergius, by c. 425 at the latest, the passion had been dismissed as a fiction." The most probable explanation for the cult, this and other authors go on to say, is that otherwise anonymous human remains were mistakenly identified as those of an early Christian martyr, or martyrs, as it happens any martyrs at all - not necessarily Christian -- or in fact any anonymous bodies in an unmarked grave which might then serve the purposes of propaganda at either end of the spectrum, for Christians bent on furthering the faith, or Romans bent on discrediting it. With this, Woods in the end concludes that "the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus probably did not exist as such."

Others have argued that Sergius and Bacchus did, indeed, exist and that they were in effect martyred, executed under Maximianus' junior colleague Maximinus, and furthermore, under orders from Maximianus - though it might equally have been Julian -- the two soldiers were first punished by the custom -- intended to humiliate any iconoclast departing from army regulations of any sort -- of dressing them in women's clothing and parading them before an assembly of their peers.

According to the passion, Sergius was a senior officer, the primicerius, within one of the imperial bodyguard units, the schola gentilium, in which Bacchus also served as a secundoceriuus or fellow officer. They both enjoyed the favor of the emperor Maximianus, thus arousing the envy of their fellow officers, who complained to the emperor that these two were not only Christians but, contrary to strict laws of Roman worship, were attempting conversion among the ranks. Doubting the rumors, says the historical record, the emperor then ordered his two favorites to join his escort, and led them to a sacrifice at the Temple of Jupiter. While their fellow officers feasted on the sacrifice, however, Sergius and Bacchus were nowhere to be seen. As the story goes, they had remained outside the temple, refusing even to witness the sacrifice, much less to partake of the feast. The emperor, enraged, dressed them in women's clothes and paraded them through the center of town back to the palace. In light of their obstinence, in fact, their outright refusal to renounce the Christian faith, he then sent them to be judged by the military commander of the province of August Euphratensis, the dux Antiochus, an old friend of Sergius' it was said, who furthermore had been granted his post through Sergius' influence.

But instead of trying to persuade Sergius to retract, Antiochus, according to the version of the story as described in the biography of the emperor Julian, and finding both Sergius and Bacchus of immutable faith, "he instead ordered what he deemed to be despicable Christians to travel with him from city to city in a cautionary display before an avid public, until they finally reached the seat of Antiochus' authority, at his palace in Barbalissus. At that moment," the story goes, "an angel appeared to them during their journey and bade them take courage, and another appeared to them during their first night in Barbalissus. The following day they were brought to trial before Antiochus, but remained steadfast in their faith. Sergius was returned to his cell, while Bacchus was beaten to death over several hours. At the very moment of his death a great voice was heard welcoming him into heaven, and his tormentors were stupefied. Antiochus, with this, forbade the burial of his remains. Instead he left them exposed outside the fort to be preyed upon by dogs and other scavengers. Yet the curs and the jackals refused to touch poor Bacchus' remains. On the contrary, they maintained a vigil over them. The following morning, monks living nearby buried them in one of their caves. The night following his death, Bacchus appeared to Sergius and urged him on in his faith."

And so the tale proceeds, intended to impress the faithless and reassure the faithful. "Antiochus journeyed to Sura the next day, and brought Sergius with him. Sergius refused another opportunity to offer sacrifice to the gods, and Antiochus punished him by having nails driven through the soles of his boots. He then forced him to run before his carriage for the journey of nine miles to the fort of Tetrapyrgium. That night an angel healed Sergius' feet. Antiochus, the following morning, was astonished by Sergius' miraculous recovery, accused him of sorcery and ordered the same punishment, this time to be endured along the nine-mile road to Resafa. Upon arrival Sergius was led to his execution. But at the moment of his death, again a voice came down from heaven, ordering the onlookers to bury his remains, to conceal them from the pagans. When attempts were made to exhume the remains, God protested and sent great flames to mark the burial spot, and soldiers aroused by the sight repented of their heartlessness and feared for their lives, so built a small shrine to Sergius. Time passed and later fifteen bishops came to the spot to consecrate the anniversary of Sergius' death on the seventh of October, great cures were worked wherever his remains had lain, and wild animals, now as tame as kittens, gathered at his first shrine on his feast day."

Aside from the morbid appeal of a martyr, any martyr, what was there in the story of Sergius to inspire this cult fixation? For one thing, the unfortunate soldier was a native Syrian, and so was inexorably identified with this land. And for another, despite his presumed bravery in battle, his discipline in the regiment, or his worth as a comrade-in-arms, he was the victim of the intransigence of an invading, and occupying, foreign power. In this he was somehow akin to Jesus Christ himself, and so could galvanize the faithful to a new sect, to distinguish a frontier outpost, otherwise alien and perhaps foreboding.

Even Chosroes II, King of Persia, nominally a pagan, became a follower when during a crisis in his kingdom he inexplicably appealed to the Christian martyr. Should St. Sergius hear his plea, he vowed, he would return Justinian's gold cross to Resafa. The cross in question, according to the legend, was actually a priceless jewel-encrusted crucifix offered to Sergius by Teodosia, Justinian's wife; it had been looted in a Persian raid on the fortress during the reign of Chosroes I. On a second occasion the Persian king appealed to St. Sergius, for his favorite wife to bear him a son. This wish was also granted. To show his gratitude the Persian sent precious gifts to the priests of Resafa, including rich vessels bearing his name and destined for use in the service of the church.

Resafa's facilities were taxed to the limit by the site's following, and eventually had to be expanded in order to accommodate the floods of pilgrims that descended on the city gates, and the treasure they offered. Byzantine emperor Anastasias I, therefore, in 434, ordered the construction of a cathedral and in 491 officially renamed the fortress, by this time a cosmopolitan urban center, "Sergiopolis".

He additionally ordered the design and edification of a number of basilicas, and for lack of water wells sufficient for the growing demand, the construction of three enormous cisterns, each one the size of any of the religious monuments. In time at least five churches were erected within the walls, in addition to the cult sites and adoratorios outside the ramparts.

The sixth century brought the renewed threat of a Persian invasion. Justinian, now emperor, ordered an elaborate program of military expansion, as a link in the chain of defenses extending from the fortress he now claimed in Halibiye deep into the Syrian interior, as far as Palmyra, by then, with the capture and imprisonment of Queen Zenobia, nearing the end of its greatness, c. 527-565.

During this period the massive stone bastions were added to the thick mud-brick walls and the walls themselves were fortified with stone blocks and reinforced with chinking, using the local crystallized gypsum cut from quarries ten kilometers distant, that to this day gives the walls their sparkle under the pitiless desert sun.

Justinian ordered, as well, the construction of bazaars and markets, baths, barracks, caravan quarters, permanent housing including pilgrims' quarters, porticoes to grace the public buildings, and expanded churches, along with innovations in military architecture, such as the covered galleries along the interior of the great walls, that allowed for the movement of patrols between bastions, safe from the arrows or artillery of an enemy camped outside.

The ingenious defenses were only partially effective. The Persians penetrated the Byzantine lines and carried their campaign all the way to Antioch. Sergiopolis survived, however, despite the repeated onslaught of the forces of Chosroes I, but later succumbed to a renewed Persian campaign at the beginning of the seventh century. Chosroes II, despite his professed devotion to St. Sergius, effectively sacked the site in 616. And so the Christian presence was debilitated in eastern Syria, thus leaving the entire region receptive to the advance of Islam two decades later.

During the Umayyad period the fortified city was known as "Sergiopolis Rassafa". According to the legends, where Sergius' remains had lain a monastery was dedicated. In effect, a sympathetic Umayyad caliph, Hisham (724-742), around the middle of the eighth century, restored the facilities for pilgrims in the site and ordered as well the construction of his own vacation palace, in a setting he apparently adored, in the midst of a Muslim city that had grown up outside the walls. Unfortunately the vengeful advance of the Abbasids -- the fledgling Islamic dynasty proclaimed inside the circular walls of the new city of Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris, in what is now Iraq - destroyed all vestiges of Hisham's presence, including his tomb, and chose instead to build their own walled fortress, with mosques and palaces, in nearby Raqqa on the banks of the river. Further damage was caused by the earthquakes of the late eighth century.

Resafa, by now just an anecdote, tribute to glories past and triumphs obliterated by the desert, still managed to support a small population, that included a number of Christians, until the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Mamluk sultan Baibars, however, ordered everyone relocated in Hama. By the time the successive waves of Mongols swept across Syria in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, followed later by the Seljuk Turks, Resafa had been completely emptied of people, of booty, even of its proud architecture. The water was gone from the cisterns and whole sections of the walls had collapsed. The paradise of the deer in green pastures and the partridges perched in the flowering trees had vanished forever.

When the German archaeologist J. Kollwitz began his excavations of Resafa in 1952, he considered the site, despite its desolation, still "among the marvels of Syria". With this he proceeded to recover, among other constructions, the martyrium of St. Sergius. The adoratorio was originally situated, he claimed, outside the walls, but later, in response to the overwhelming demands of hordes of pilgrims - considering as well their safety, lodgings and access to food and water -- it was moved inside, where as a result the first church was erected over its foundations, of polychrome marble, precious woods and a metal gate to separate the faithful from Sergius' tomb. Access was only granted by special request, but a pilgrim before the sarcophagus was then anointed with perfumed oil. A treasury was added to accommodate the votive offerings, deposited in a basin of red marble, that included small copper or larger gold coins, engraved urns of gold and silver often containing exotic gifts such as quicksilver or rare essences, or fragile vessels of the finest glass, as well as jewelry or loose gemstones. Pilgrims, as conscienceless then as they are today, often left messages incised or painted on the walls, to record their visit.

According to additional excavations that continued through the nineteen seventies and eighties, four more basilicas later appeared around the city, as well as a number of chapels, generally adjacent to the accommodations for the pilgrims. By the sixth century, claims Kollwitz, the great walls contained a rectangular enclosure measuring 2550 by 2400 meters. Despite deterioration over the centuries the glitter of the gypsum in the construction of these monumental ramparts led to the discovery of the city in 1691, by a traveling contingent of European merchants, bound from Aleppo to Palmyra on the Euphrates road. They presumably entered the city through the colossal north gate, set just west of the center of the wall and described by art historians as "among the most beautiful and best preserved examples of Byzantine architecture, enriched by its Roman references." Still visible, despite earthquake, conquest and the passage of time, is the intricate conjuncture of patios, porticoes and Roman arches formed of white gypsum, perched on columns with Byzantine capitals. The central gateway, for wagons and carriages, even for elephants, was flanked by two lateral portals for pedestrians or riders on horse- or camel-back; it was richly decorated with elaborate friezes, now missing or vandalized. The defensive bastions enclosed the carefully designed whole, supported from the inside by gigantic buttresses.

Despite the astonishment of the traveling merchants, and their delight in Resafa, it was not until after 1903, during the Ottoman period, that German archaeologists began serious investigation, including the formal mapping of the site. Few of the original constructions remained and the fields across the center of the city were pitted with the craters left by treasure hunters.

The Via Recta, now just a dry and uneven path, had served as the main thoroughfare, extending all across the enclosure, from the north to the south gates, but lining both sides, even today, are fallen building blocks, and the remains of pilasters, columns and capitals. The first ruined structure on view, just to the left of the street, is the martyrium, where early in the city's history the bodies of Sergius, and his companions Bacchus and Julia, were laid to rest. The small basilica, also known as the "centralized church" -- after the Byzantine architectural idiosyncrasy defined, like the Buddhist Mandala, by a "circle within a square" -- was graced by an apse of glowing crystallized gypsum, two apsidal chapels and monolithic columns of rose-colored marble, pieces of which are scattered by earthquake in careless disarray. The capitals and the archway are delicately carved, yet the keystone has gone awry; the building remains erect only by an unlikely whim or quirk of fate. Perhaps St. Sergius himself has determined its survival, however precarious.

At a short distance behind the martyrium are a number of vaulted rooms around a beautifully decorated central courtyard, supposedly the remains of an inn for pilgrims, later used as a khan or caravanserai.

Beyond the forum or agora, about one hundred meters east of the martyrium, stands a larger and more grandiose version of the earlier church, designated as the Great Basilica. This had originally been part of Anastasias' "cathedral", expanded in the fifth century to honor St. Sergius. A horseshoe apse on the north side includes a chapel with the scant remains of a crypt, possibly an early repository for the martyr's remains. Integrated into the southern wall is a colonnaded hall, once the lateral nave from the building's Christian days. This was later employed as a mosque during the Mamluk period. Two alcoves in the church wall became mihrabs. Inscriptions on the lintels, probably left by the Byzantine architects, confirm the dates of construction and with this the archaeologists have been able to assess the sequence of the various churches.

The Basilica was officially renamed "Holy Cross" in 1977, upon the discovery of an inscription that perhaps refers to that disputed cross, the offering attributed to either Justinian or Teodosia, or both. The basic plan, dedicated in 559 and of visible majesty, followed the characteristic Byzantine design, in the form of a cross, with two lateral passages separated by a central nave, supported by enormous arches. The arches, with innovative acanthus capitals, are intended to support the weight of the walls and roof. Because of repeated earthquake damage, however, they had to be enclosed two by two by a larger arch, supported by three columns, and separated by solid piers. The broken arches and remnants of windows are now open to the piercing blue of a fierce sky.

Not far from the Great Basilica is an opening in the southeast corner of the ramparts, that led to the knoll where Caliph Hisham, though nothing of it remains, ostensibly built his palace on a square floorplan, all rooms opening onto a generous inner patio with gardens and fountain.

Though the walled desolation of the Resafa enclosure is now nothing but ruins the sheep remain in the neighboring villages. Their wool, transported on festive market days that jam the only road and block all traffic with trucks and tractors, goes to supply the mills in Raqqa or Aleppo. The Bedouin nomads still water their flocks with the brackish water from the deep, open well at the northwest end of the Resafa ramparts. The rope they use, drawn by mules or a camel and indicating the depth of the well, is more than forty meters long.

The original Resafa wells, forty-seven meters deep and just as brackish, inspired the famous cisterns, to hold water drawn along the canals from the Euphrates into a dam five hundred meters long, then to a holding pond, one hundred meters long, where the water was filtered. And while the cisterns have lain abandoned since the thirteenth century their formidable walls, of brick and stone two meters thick, designed to hold 20,000 cubic meters of water, remain virtually intact, and their vaulted brick ceilings, of cathedral-like monumentality, are still held aloft on buttresses.

The Christian Ghasanid emir Al-Numen ben Al-Hareth later effected repairs to the work of Anastasias' and Justinian's engineers. The largest of the cisterns measured 57 by 21 meters, by 15 meters deep. The other two measured 27 by 8 meters each, with a depth of ten meters. They were capable, in total, of supplying a population of two thousand, which could be expanded if necessary, during a particularly wet rainy season, to six thousand. Yet it was the middle and lower classes resident inside the city walls who consumed this water. The privileged sent their servants with donkeys to bring clear, fresh water from the Euphrates, forty kilometers away.

The original systems of defense remain to this day. Broken stairways, now rising from the dry floor of the empty city into surrealistic nothingness, mounted the fifty separate towers, each of a different design - using, at random, both rounded and squared forms-- in the walls that protected the four monumental gates, one on each side of the rampart. "Resafa," according to early historians, "was a prosperous city, devoted to trade." What might life have been for the inhabitants of this fortified desert outpost? Most of the population, according to all estimates, was Christian, and was engaged in the protection and supply of the caravans, transshipment of merchandise and, adds the anonymous historian, "collusion with bandits". The men spun the yarn, the women confected the woolen clothing, or the woven sacks for the merchandise, especially Raqqa porcelain. Did their gardens grow? Did their money flow? Were they healthy or sickly? Did they frolic? Did they mourn? Who taught their children to read? Their day and cares were in no way confined to the worship of the martyred Sergius. What else was there? And so the days, and the years, like faith or passion, passed into oblivion.

Carol Miller, sculptress, photographer, translator and journalist, is the author of a number of books on Mexico and the Mayas, and has also traveled extensively in Syria. She writes regularly for Syria Gate (see links). For bio and abstracts, visit the website www.xlibris.com/CarolMiller.html