The siege of Mopsuestia in 965AD. The Cilician city had been occupied by the Arabs for over two centuries, but now the Romans had returned for it as they liberated lost lands Nikephoros Phokas, “the pale death of the Saracens,” knew exactly how to deal with the stubborn enemy!
The Emperor Nikephoros Phokas surrounded the city and “vigorously besieged it, bombarding it on all sides with artillery engines. The inhabitants resisted bravely, shooting burning arrows and hurling heavy stones against the Romans, warding them off from the towers with all their might.” Taking the city by direct siege and storming the walls seemed unrealistic.
As the battle raged, there was a deadlock. Both sides were vigorously engaging in combat. To try to find a solution “the emperor, who was energetic and clever at finding a way in impossible circumstances, walked around and figured out which part of the towers was vulnerable, and in the middle of the night brought men up and ordered them to dig quietly, starting from the banks of Pyramos River, which flowed by there, so that the barbarians should not realize…” In order to hide their efforts, they could not leave visible mounds of dirt for the enemy to see. Thus, the dirt from the tunneling was secretly dumped into the river.
After digging this tunnel under the wall, the operation was ready to proceed. They walls were “propped up with timbers, to prevent their collapse.” At dawn, the enemy “leaned over the towers and stretched their bows and prepared their other devices, and abused the emperor with insults. He ordered fire to be set to the subterranean supports of the towers, and he himself, completely armed, went forth to marshal the troops.” The fires quickly burned through the timbers holding the wall, and fortifications rapidly crumbled.
The Arabs defending the wall “were instantly crushed to death. The rest were taken captive by the Romans and lamented the fortune that had overtaken them. Since the demolition of the wall provided access to anyone at will, the emperor entered Mopsuestia with all his troops and enslaved it, and sent the surviving barbarians into slavery.”
Nikephoros then took the “best of the booty and assigned to the imperial treasury.” Nikephoros always needed more money, not for luxury, but to pay his victorious armies and go on campaign against then enemies of New Rome. But, he could get results in the field of battle – the city was back in the empire.
SOURCE
The History of Leo the Deacon
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