Page 18 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

THE SELEUCID PERIOD 5

special relationship to the Assyrian king. In the ninth to eighth century B.C.,
its turtanu was the highest military commander of the Assyrian empire, who
held the politico-religious office of limmu after the king himself. Esarhaddon
visited the temple of Harran on his way to the conquest of Egypt; not long
afterwards Ashurbanipal installed his brother there as High Priest. It was at
Harran that the Assyrian forces under Ashuruballit made their last stand
before retreating westward in about 610 B.C., and, by historical justice, Harran
was the residence of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon.

It is certainly surprising that no obvious reference to Orhay has been
found so far in the early historical texts dealing with the region, and that,
unlike Harran, its name does not occur in cuneiform itineraries. This may be
accidental, or Orhay may be alluded to under a different name which has not
been identified.1 Perhaps it was not fortified, and therefore at this time a
place of no great military or political significance. With the Seleucid period,
however, we are on firm historical ground. Seleucus I founded—or rather
re-founded—a number of cities in this region. Among them, probably in 303
or 302 B.C., was Orhay.
The genius of Alexander had introduced a radical change in the technique
of warfare. The meteoric speed with which he moved across the scene of
events was unparalleled. It was based upon a novel disposition and use of
fighting material. An army was now a carefully co-ordinated machine—
various types of infantry to take the shock of battle, cavalry to gather swiftly
the fruits of victory, artillery both for siege and in the field, engineers with a
wide range of equipment, an intelligence service, and even the rudiments of a
medical service, and survey and geographical units to maintain the force with
the skill and assurance of science. Campaigns were mounted in any season of
the year; rapid movement ensured the advantage of surprise. In the military
sphere this new conception of time and movement was as far-reaching as the
invention of the aeroplane in the twentieth century.
The cities of the plain, among them Harran, now became vulnerable.2
But Orhay was admirably fitted to meet the new military situation, for with
its great strategic importance it combines great natural strength. Within the
broad curve of the Euphrates it commands a fertile hinterland, and it stands
at sufficient distance from the river—eighty-five kilometres east of Zeugma and
Birtha (Birecik), forty-five kilometres south-east of Samosata—to be fore-
warned against attack from the west.3 The city lies wedged against the

1 The city Urshu, well known from cunei- element in that city as late as the time of
form inscriptions, almost certainly lay west, Pompey, p. 10 below.
not east, of the Euphrates. 3 On his campaign against the Persians, how-
2 There were, however, Macedonian settlers ever, Alexander advanced eastwards to Nisibis,
at Harran already in 312 B.C., presumably for not through Zeugma but through Thapsacus,
political reasons; we hear of a Macedonian by the valleys of the Balikh and the Gullab.

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