The inhabitants of Edessa have, or rather had, a legend that Christ promised their king Abgarus that their city should never be taken. This gave them such confidence, that they on all occasions braved the most formidable enemies. In 503 of the Christian era, Cavadez, king of Persia, approached Edessa at the head of an army. The confidence of the inhabitants was so little shaken by the appearance of this formidable host, that they left their gates wide open during a whole day, and, such is the influence of superstition, the Persians did not make the least attempt to violate the prohibition. It is related that, on this occasion, children even went to the camp of the Persians, and insulted them with impunity. Cavadez proposed an accommodation; but without effect. This prince was preparing his batteries, when the inhabitants made so furious an assault upon him, that, without losing a single man, they repulsed his army with great slaughter. Ashamed of his defeat, the great king regained his dominions at quickest speed.
SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 544.
Chosroës, son of the above king, presented himself before Edessa, but without any better success. Upon the point of abandoning his enterprise, he made it known, by a herald, that he meant to sell all the prisoners he had taken at Antioch. The whole city of Edessa, animated by the zealous and active charity which religion inspires, was in a state of eager impatience to redeem these unhappy victims of war. Every one wished to contribute in proportion to, or even beyond their fortune, to this pious purpose. Each person carried his offering to the great church, which was speedily filled with treasures of various kinds. Courtesans from their vices, honest peasants from their labours, if they had but a goat or a sheep, contributed cheerfully to the liberation of their fellow Christians. This generous emulation produced a sufficient ransom for all the prisoners. But, as is too often the case, this wealth, collected for holy purposes, became so great as to attract the cupidity of Buzes, who commanded the city for the emperor Justinian: when it was collected, he appropriated the whole to himself, and Chosroës took his prisoners to a better market.
THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 549.
Four years after, this prince again laid siege to Edessa, and attacked it vigorously. But the besieged made a sortie, in which, it is said, an officer named Arget killed, with his own hand, twenty-seven of the enemy, and in which Chosroës was repulsed. He then commenced, out of reach of the city missiles, a platform, with the purpose of carrying it up to the walls. The sight of this terrible work induced the inhabitants to have recourse to prayer. The physician Stephen endeavoured to bend the haughty monarch: “Great lord,” said he, “humanity marks the character of good kings. Victories and conquests will procure you other titles, but kindnesses alone will secure you the name dearest to your own age, and most honourable in the eyes of posterity. If there is a city in the world which ought to experience the effects of that kindness, it is that which you now threaten to destroy. Edessa gave me birth. I restored life to your father; I preserved and watched over your infancy. Alas! when I advised the immortal Cavadez to place you on his throne, and to deprive your brothers of it, I was then preparing the ruin of my own country! Blind mortals, we are often the artisans of our own misfortunes! If you remember my services, I ask of you a recompense which will be not less advantageous to you than to my compatriots. By leaving them their lives, you spare yourself the reproach of cruelty.” This well-timed and pathetic discourse produced very little effect upon Chosroës; he made such hard propositions, that the besieged fell back upon their courage and their resources. They destroyed the point of the terrace, by digging a chamber under it, and filling it with the most combustible wood, steeped in oil of cedar, sulphur, and bitumen; fire was easily set to this, and the following night, columns of fire were seen bursting from different parts of the platform. At the same time, the Romans, the better to deceive the enemy, threw upon it a number of fire-pots and ignited torches. The Persians, not suspecting there was any other cause for the fire, came in crowds from their camp to extinguish it, and were received with showers of missiles from the walls. Chosroës himself came to the scene of action, and was the first to discover that the conflagration was in the entrails of his platform. He ordered the whole army to throw earth upon the top, to stifle the flames, and water to extinguish them; but all in vain: when vent was stopped at one place, a hundred more passages were opened in others, the water thrown upon the sulphur and bitumen augmenting the violence of the burning. In the midst of the confusion, the garrison made a happy and vigorous sortie, producing great slaughter among the Persians. At length the flames burst from all parts, and the work was abandoned.
Six days after, Chosroës ordered the walls to be scaled, early in the morning; but, after a severe contest, the Persians were repulsed, and obliged to abandon their ladders, which were drawn up over the walls by the besieged, amidst triumphant laughter. On the same day at noon, the Persians attacked one of the gates; but the garrison, the peasants who had retired to the city, with the inhabitants, made a sortie from the gate attacked, and again repulsed their enemies. At length, the king of Persia, enraged at this noble resistance, resolved upon a general assault. The citizens crowded to defend their walls; every human being in Edessa became a soldier; women, children, and old men, were all eager to share the labours of the combatants, or to furnish them with arms and refreshments. The Persians gave way; Chosroës forced them back to the walls with threats and blows; but, notwithstanding his efforts, they yielded to the brave efforts of the besieged. Foaming with vexation and rage, Chosroës regained his camp, and soon after returned to his own states. During this furious attack, an immense elephant, bearing upon his back a lofty tower, filled with archers, advanced towards the wall like a terrible machine, from the top of which poured a continuous shower of darts and arrows. There was great chance of the wall being escaladed at this spot, when a Roman soldier took it into his head to suspend a pig by a cord, and dangle it before the elephant. This animal appeared amazed at the horrible noise made by the suspended pig; he at first looked at it earnestly, and then, turning his back, retreated in such haste as to place his master’s troops in danger.
FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1097.
Although the means by which Edessa fell into the hands of one of the Crusaders may not be, correctly speaking, a siege, the circumstances are too interesting to be passed by in silence.
Of all the Crusaders, Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, was one of the bravest, but at the same time the most intractable. In fact, he had the honesty to confess what many of his comrades really felt, but were ashamed to admit; he came into Asia to make his fortune, and he lost no opportunity for effecting that great purpose.
Seduced by the attractive picture drawn of the provinces upon the banks of the Euphrates, by Pancratius, an ambitious, restless Armenian prince, Baldwin, soon after the siege of Nicea, abandoned the main army of the Crusaders, and may literally be said to have gone to seek his fortune at the head of fifteen hundred foot and two hundred horse, all attracted by the hopes of plunder. He was the more free for this undertaking, from having just lost his wife Gundechilde, who had accompanied him to the Crusade. He witnessed the magnificent obsequies bestowed upon her by his fellow-adventurers, and then departed, unregretted, on his expedition.