Byzantine Battles: Capture of Antioch

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4 th century

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5 th century

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15 th century

Capture of Antioch	year: 540 June 540
The Persians captured and destroyed the city	★ ★ ★ ★ ★

enemy: Sassanid Persians	location: In “Antioch the Great” or Antioch on the Orontes or Antioch of Syria, near modern Antakya, Turkey	accuracy: ●●●●●
battle type: City Capture	war: Byzantine-Persian Wars	modern country: Turkey

	▼ The Byzantines(emperor: Justinian I)	▼ The Enemies
Commander:		Khosrow I
Forces:
Losses:

Background story:

The so called Infinite Peace (Pax Perpetuum) was signed between the Byzantines and the Persians in 532, after the battle of Kallinikos and the great losses on both sides. Under that treaty, the Byzantines paid 11,000 pounds of gold to the Persians and ceded the city of Daras.
For the next few years, the Persian Shah Khosrow I (Chosroes I) was busy stabilizing his power.
In 540, under the pretext of the attacks of the Ghassanid Arabs (who were allies of the Byzantines) and persuaded by Ostrogothic envoys (who sought to distract the Byzantine campaigns in Italy), Khosrow broke the peace and invaded Byzantine territory.

The Battle:

The walls of Antioch

Khosrow I with 30,000 troops marched to the Upper Euphrates, where he captured the cities of Sura and Beroea and besieged Antioch. Antioch had already suffered great damage from an earthquake in 526 and was still under reconstruction by Justinian who had named it Theopolis. The walls of Antioch were still largely damaged by the earthquake and could not be rebuilt due to the costly military Byzantine campaigns in Italy.
When the city refused to surrender, it was raided and then looted and burned. The population of Antioch and much of its mobile wealth was transferred to a new city near Ctesiphon. Khosrow did not hold the damaged city and returned to his headquarters via Daras.

Noteworthy:

The new city built by the forced relocation of the inhabitants of Antioch was on the east bank of the Tigris near Ctesiphon, in the heart of Mesopotamia, and was named Weh Antiok Khosrow, which means, approximately, “better than Antioch built by Khosrow”. Procopius, who gives an extensive description, calls it “Antioch of Khosrow”.
It is said that the population transferred from Byzantine Antioch was 300,000, but this perhaps is an exaggeration.

Aftermath:

The Byzantines pursued a policy of appeasement to no avail. Justinian made efforts to rebuild and revitalize the city, but Antioch did not become great again.
The following year, Belisarius campaigned in the area and besieged Nisibis without success, while Khosrow was trying to regain territory in Lazica. The hostilities continued for several years and ended in peace finally in 562.