The Persian flood of a Roman desert city
(Nusaybin location via Google Maps)
Nisibis
Some city and region names continually reappear in history.
One such place is Nisibis, modern-day Nusaybin, an arid city on the
Turkish-Syrian border. In early history, Nisibis repeatedly changed hands from
conqueror to conqueror. The Assyrians took Nisibis, followed by the Babylonians.
Alexander the Great conquered the region and brought it into his empire in the
4th century BCE. After Alexander’s death, the Seleucid Empire
continued the Hellenistic rule of Nisibis. The Seleucids lost Nisibis to
Armenia and by the 1st century CE, Parthian Persians took the city.
The Roman Empire, however was also interested in Nisibis. During the 3rd
Century CE, the Romans and the Sasanian Persians lost the city to each other multiple
times, but the Romans controlled the region well into the beginning of the 4th
century. This brings us to the clash between two emperors, Constantius II and
Shapur II, over none other than the city of Nisibis.
