A.D. 503.

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.

The cities of Turbessel and Ravendel were the first places that opened their gates to the fortunate adventurer. These conquests soon produced a division between Baldwin and Pancratius, both being actuated by the same ambitious projects; but this quarrel did not stop the march of the brother of Godfrey a moment. The Crusader opposed open unhesitating force to cunning; he told Pancratius, if he presumed to be his rival, he should at once treat him as an enemy; and thus banished the disappointed Armenian from the theatre of his victories. Baldwin stood in need of neither guide nor help in a country whose inhabitants all came out to hail and meet him. His fame preceded his march; and his exploits were canvassed in Edessa long before he drew near to its walls.

This city, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, and so celebrated in the history of the primitive church, having escaped the invasions of the Turks and Persians, became the place of refuge for all the neighbouring Christians, who brought their wealth thither for security. A Greek prince, of the name of Theodore, sent by the emperor of Constantinople, was governor at the time, and maintained his position by paying tribute to the Saracens. The approach and the victories of the Crusaders produced a great sensation in Edessa. The people united with the governor in calling Baldwin to their aid. The bishop and twelve of the principal inhabitants were deputed to meet the European adventurer. They spoke to him of the wealth of Mesopotamia, of the devotion of their fellow-citizens to the cause of Christ, and conjured him to save a Christian city from the domination of the infidels. Baldwin easily yielded to their entreaties, and set forward on his march to cross the Euphrates.

He had the good fortune to escape the Turks, who laid wait for him, and without drawing a sword, arrived safely in the territories of Edessa. Having left garrisons in the places which had surrendered to him, when he came near to this great object of his ambition, he had really with him no more than a body of a hundred horsemen. As he approached the city, the whole population came out to meet him, bearing olive-branches, and singing triumphant hymns. It was a singular spectacle to behold such a small number of warriors surrounded by an immense multitude, imploring their support, and proclaiming them their liberators. They were received with so much enthusiasm, that the prince or governor took umbrage at it, and began to see in them enemies much more dangerous than the Saracens. To attach their leader to himself, and to engage him to support his authority, he offered him vast wealth. But the ambitious Baldwin, whether he expected to obtain more from the affection of the people and the good fortune of his arms, or whether he considered it disgraceful to be in the pay of a petty foreign prince, refused the governor’s offers with contempt; he even threatened to leave the city to its fate. The inhabitants, to prevent his departure, assembled in a tumultuous manner, and conjured him with loud cries to remain amongst them; the governor himself made fresh efforts to detain the Crusaders and interest them in their cause. Baldwin gave them all clearly to understand that he would never be at the trouble of defending states that were not his own; and the prince of Edessa, who was old and childless, determined to adopt him as his son, and to designate him as his successor. The ceremony of adoption was gone through in the presence of the Crusaders and the inhabitants. According to the custom of the East, the Greek prince caused Baldwin to pass between his shirt and his naked flesh, giving him a kiss, in token of alliance and parentage. The old wife of the governor repeated the same ceremony, and from that time Baldwin, considered as their son and heir, neglected nothing for the defence of a city which was to belong to him.

An Armenian prince coming to the aid of Edessa, Baldwin, seconded by this useful auxiliary, with his own horsemen and Theodore’s troops, thought himself in a condition to take the field against the Turks. He was at first successful, but, whilst his men were engaged in plunder, they were attacked, and obliged to return to Edessa, where their appearance spread consternation.

As a loser is never welcome, Baldwin and Theodore began now to quarrel. But the people were all in favour of the new prince, and after several disgraceful plots and tumults, the Edessans hurled their old governor from the battlements, dragged his bleeding body through the streets, rejoicing over the murder of an old man as if they had gained a victory over the infidels.

Although Baldwin affected to be passive in this horrid business, he did not fail to seize the advantages that accrued to him in consequence of it. He was proclaimed master and liberator of Edessa. Seated on a bloody throne, and dreading the inconstant humour of the people, he soon inspired as much fear among his subjects as among his enemies. But his firmness of character overcame domestic seditions, and his prudence, tact, and valour speedily extended his dominions. He purchased the city of Samoata with the treasures of his predecessor, and took several other cities by force of arms. As fortune favoured him in everything, the loss even of his wife assisted his projects of aggrandizement. He married the niece of an Armenian prince, and, by this alliance, extended his possessions to Mount Taurus. All Mesopotamia, with the two shores of the Euphrates, acknowledged his authority, and Asia beheld a Frank knight reigning without obstacle over the richest provinces of the ancient kingdom of Assyria.

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