Nisibis Sentence Examples

Its main centres were at Edessa and Nisibis, but it was the literary language of practically all the Christian writers in the region east of Antioch, as well as of the Christian subjects of the Persian empire.

The site of Nisibis, on the great road between the Tigris and the Mediterranean, and commanding alike the mountain country to the north and the then fertile plain to the south, gave it an importance which began during the Assyrian period and continued under the Seleucid empire.

Ceded to the Parthians by Hadrian, it became a Roman colony (Septimia Colonia Nisibis) under Septimius Severus.

Nisibis early became the seat of a Jacobite bishop and of a Nestorian metropolitan, and under the Arabs (when it continued to flourish and became the centre of the district of Diya`r Rebi`a) the population of the town and neighbourhood was still mostly Christian, and included numerous monasteries.

Arab geographers and travellers of the middle ages speak in high terms of the gardens of Nisibis, and the magnificent returns obtained by the agriculturist.

The town was so heavily taxed by the Hamdanid princes at Mosul that the Arab tribe of the Banu Habib, although blood relations of the Hamdanids, migrated into Byzantine territory, where they were well received, accepted Christianity, attracted other emigrants from Nisibis, and at last began to avenge themselves by yearly raids upon their old home.

This destroyed the prosperity of Nisibis, and the district, no longer protected against nomad tribes, became a wilderness.

Nisibis (Nezib) appeared for the last time in history in 1839, when the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Turkish army under Hafiz Pasha on the 24th of June in a battle at which von Moltke was present.

The Nestorian teachers then started a great school at Nisibis (which had been under Persian rule since Jovian's humiliating treaty of 363).

The most powerful missionary of Nestorianism during the 2nd half of the 5th century was Barsauma of Nisibis, whom his opponents called " the swimmer among the reeds," i.e.

Born probably between 415 and 420 he imbibed Nestorian doctrine from Ibas at the Persian school of Edessa, but was driven out in 457 on the death of his master, and went to be bishop of Nisibis.

Barsauma must have been bishop of Nisibis for nearly 40 years, but was dead by 496.

His fellow-worker Narsai, whom the Jacobites called " the leper," but the Nestorians " the harp of the Holy Spirit," apparently accompanied Barsauma from Edessa to Nisibis, where according to Barhebraeus he lived for 50 years.

Elias bar Shinaya, who in 1008 became Nestorian bishop of Nisibis, was the author of a valuable Chronicle, to which are prefixed numerous chronological tables, lists of popes, patriarchs, &c., and which covers by its narrative the period from A.D.

Meanwhile one of his pupils, Barsumas, had settled at Nisibis in Persian territory where he became bishop in 435 and established a Nestorian school.

That the ascetic ideal was by no means wholly extinct is evident from the Book of Governors written by Thomas, bishop of Marga, in 840 which bears witness to a Syrian monasticism founded by one Awgin of Egyptian descent, who settled in Nisibis about 3 50, and lasting uninterruptedly until the time of Thomas, though it had long been absorbed in the great Nestorian movement that had annexed the church in Mesopotamia.

The same form of the name (probably pronounced Uvasu) occurs in the Syrian version of the canon of Ptolemy by Elias of Nisibis (Amos).

At Nasibin (Nisibis) rice is cultivated with success.

It was perhaps a Parthian governor of Mesopotamia that was called in to help Strato of Beroea against Demetrius III.; but before long Mesopotamia (especially the district of Nisibis) was attached to the growing dominions of Armenia under its ambitious king Tigranes, perhaps with the consent of Sinatruces (Sanatruces).

The affairs of Armenia continued to be the source of friction between Parthia and Rome, and Nisibis changed hands several times.

The woods at Nisibis, the headquarters, provided material for the boats with which in 116 he crossed the Tigris.

For the revolt that occurred while Trajan was on the Persian Gulf, in which the Jews had an important hand, Nisibis and Edessa suffered capture and destruction.

Then, when Vologaeses, yielding to his growing discontent, took advantage of the death of Antoninus to invade Armenia the Romans were victorious (164), and after the storming of places such as Nicephorium, Edessa, Nisibis, western Mesopotamia was once more Roman as far as the Khabur, Carrhae becoming a free city and Osroene a dependency.

Unfortunately they contain practically nothing that is not of Christian origin.4 On the death of Aurelius Hatra aided Niger against Septimius Severus in 194; Osroene rose against Rome, and Nisibis was besieged and other Roman places taken; but Septimius Severus appeared in person (195), and from Nisibis as headquarters subdued the whole country, of which he made Nisibis metropolis, raising it to the rank of a colony, the Sinjar district, where Arabs from Yemen had settled, being incorporated.

On his retiring everything was undone, only Nisibis holding out; but on his reappearance in 198 the Parthians withdrew.

On his assassination near Carrhae (217), Macrinus was defeated at Nisibis and had to purchase peace, though he retained Roman Mesopotamia, reinstating the princely house in Osroene.

It was immediately, indeed, recovered by Alexander Severus, and retained, whatever was the precise success of the war; but Nisibis and Period.

A rest for Mesopotamia seems to have followed; but in 258 Shapur, tempted by the troubles in the Roman empire, overran the country taking Nisibis and Carrhae, and investing Edessa, and .vhen Valerian invaded Mesopotamia he was eventually made prisoner, by Edessa (260).

When it was retrieved by a signal victory, Diocletian advanced to Nisibis and thence dictated terms of peace by which Mesopotamia to the Tigris was definitely ceded to Rome (298).

Nisibis thrice endured unsuccessful siege (33 8, 346, 35 o), although meanwhile Constantine had suffered defeat at Singara (348).

Then Mesopotamia enjoyed two short rests (separated by a sharp struggle) while the rivals were engaged elsewhere, when in 363 Julian made his disastrous attempt, and Jovian bought peace at the price, among other things, of Singara and Nisibis - i.e.

In the war of 421, in which the north-east of Mesopotamia was chiefly concerned, the Romans failed to take Nisibis, and it became a natural rallying point for the Nestorians after the decision of Ephesus (431).

In the confusion that followed, when men of letters had to live and work in exile, Nisibis set up for a time (631-632) a grandson of Chosroes II.

Out of the crusades, however, arose other efforts to develop the work which Nestorian missionaries from Bagdad, Edessa and Nisibis had already inaugurated along the Malabar coast, in the island of Ceylon, and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea.

Five provinces which had been conquered by Galerius in 298 were surrendered, together with Nisibis and other cities.

Thus Celaenae in Phrygia became Apamea; Haleb (Aleppo) in Syria became Beroea; Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Antioch; Rhagae (Rai) in Media, Europus.

But Abdalmalik's first task was to subdue Zofar and his Qaisites at Kerkesia (Qarqisia), and the rest of the partisans of Mokhtar at Nisibis.

Whilst Merwan besieged Homs, Dahhak returned to Mesopotamia and took Mosul, whence he threatened Nisibis, where Abdallah, the son of Merwan, maintained himself with difficulty.

Abu Moslim marched against him, and the two armies met at Nisibis, where, after a number of skirmishes, a decisive engagement took place (28th November 7 54).

He was born in the reign of Constantine (perhaps in 306) at or near Nisibis.

He became a ward and disciple of the famous Jacob - the same who attended the Council of Nicaea as bishop of Nisibis, and died in 338.

At his hands Ephraim seems to have received baptism at the age of 18 or of 28 (the two recensions differ on this point), and remained at Nisibis till its surrender to the Persians by Jovian in 363.

The first 20 poems were written at Nisibis between 350 and 363 during the Persian invasions; the remaining 52 at Edessa between 363 and 373.

The former tell us much of the incidents of the frontier war, and particularly enable us to reconstruct in detail the history of the third siege of Nisibis in 350.

Hence he was already by Gennadius of Marseilles (before 496) confused with Jacob, bishop of Nisibis; and the ancient Armenian version of nineteen of the homilies has been published under this latter name.

But (1) Jacob of Nisibis, who attended the council of Nicaea, died in 338; and (2) our author, being a Persian subject, cannot have lived at Nisibis, which became Persian only by Jovian's treaty of 363.

That his name was Aphrahat or Pharhadh we learn from comparatively late writers - Bar Bahlul (loth century), Elias of Nisibis (11th), Bar-Hebraeus, and `Abad-isho'.

In the west the old conflict for Osroene and northern Mesopotamia (now Roman provinces), with the fortresses of Edessa, Carrhae and Nisibis, still smouldered.

The conflict centred round the Mesopotamian fortresses; Shpur thrice besieged Nisibis without success, but reduced several others, as Amida (359) and Singara (360), and transplanted great masses of inhabitants into Susiana.

Julian pressed forward to Ctesiphon but succumbed to a wound; and his successor Jovian soon found himself in such straits, that he could only extricate himself and his army by a disgraceful peace at the close of 363, which ceded the possessions on the Tigris and the great fortress of Nisibis, and pledged Rome to abandon Armenia and her Arsacid protg, Arsaces III., to the Persian.

Maurice made no attempt to turn the opportunity to Roman advantage, and in the peace then concluded he even abandoned Nisibis to the Persians.

Here, on a dark tempestuous night, he surprised and stormed Nisibis, the capital of the Armenian district of Mesopotamia, and in this city, which yielded him a rich booty, he found satisfactory winter quarters.

He entered the army at an early age, when Constantius II was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis and magister militiae.

A new seminary of logic and theology sprang up at Nisibis, not far from the old locality; and at Gandisapora (or Nishapur), in the east of Persia, there arose a medical school, whence Greek medicine, and in its company Greek science and philosophy, ere long spread over the lands of Iran.

At such times, therefore, it included such towns as Harran (Carrhae), Nisibis, Sarug, Zeugma-Birejik, Resaena, Singara, Tigranocerta, Samosata, Melitene.

Edessa can claim no share in " the Persian Sage " Aphrahat or Afrahat (Aphraates); but Ephraem, after bewailing in Nisibis the sufferings of the great Persian war under Constantius and Julian, when Jovian in 363 ceded most of Mesopotamia to Shapur II., the persecutor of the Christians, settled in Edessa, which as the seat of his famous school (called " the Persian ") grew greatly in importance, and attracted scholars from all directions.

When the popular Nestorianism of the Syrians was condemned at Ephesus (431) it began to gravitate eastwards, Nisibis becoming its eventual headquarters; but Edessa and the western Syrians refused to bow to the Council of Chalcedon (45r) when it condemned Monophysitism.

When, however, Zeno's edict (489) ordered the closing of the school of the Persians at Edessa, East and West drifted apart more and more; the ecclesiastical writer Narsai, " the Harp of the Holy Spirit," fled to Nisibis about 489.

Lastly, acknowledgment must be made of the great value of the Catalogue of Nestorian writers, by `Abadisho' of Nisibis, the latest important writer in Syriac. It was edited by Assemani in the 3rd part of his Bibliotheca orientalis, and has been translated into English by Badger.

Elias of Nisibis), medicine (Galen) and cosmetics (Cleopatra), in ready-reckoners (Didymus), clerk's (katib's) guides, and like handbooks, and in indirect explanations of the equivalents of measures mentioned by authors (e.g.

The surrender of Nisibis, which had been in the possession of Rome for so many generations, caused consternation among the Christians, and Ephraem (q.v.) moved to Edessa, where his "school of the Persians" soon became famous (see Edessa).

In the beginning of the 6th century there was another severe struggle in Mesopotamia, which found an anonymous Syriac historian (see Edessa), and in infringement of agreement the Romans strongly fortified Dara against Nisibis.