Map of the area of Cyrenaica (in eastern Libya now). Its famous five cities (Pentapolis) were: Cyrene and its port Apollonia (now, Susa), Ptolemais (the next capital after Cyrene’s destruction by an earthquake), Barca (now, Barka), Balagrae (now, Bayda) and Berenice (now, Benghazi)
Synesius of Cyrene (c. 373 – c. 414), a Greek Christian and Neo-Platonist philosopher, of Spartan descent, and later Bishop of Ptolemais (410 – 414), having been ordained by Pope Theophilus of Alexandria (384 – 412), was a citizen of Cyrenaica (Pentapolis). Cyrenaica was a prosperous Roman province that was under the Prefect of Egypt and the Coptic Church. In the early 400s, it was exposed to a series of attacks by the marauding Berber hordes that culminated in its fall to them in 430s, thereby ending the Roman presence there.
Synesius was a citizen there, and he loved Pentapolis. He worked to ensure its proper governance and its defence against the barbarians. In 401, the Berber started their first attacks, as it seems, against the country, destroying villages, stealing properties, massacring men and enslaving women and children. Synesius could not see that and stay idle or passive. There was no shred of cowardice in his fibre, and, rather than save his skin, he was engaged in the defence of his country. But the weakness of the Roman administration and the cowardice of some of its leaders betrayed him. We can see the same situation reproduced in Egypt later in 639 AD, when Arab hordes attacked Egypt, and the weakness of its administration and the cowardice of its military leaders sealed the fate of Egypt. But, it was not only these who disappointed Synesius in Pentapolis – there was the passivity of many of her citizen, who because of their inactivity led to her fall. Here again, we see similarity between Pentapolis in the early 400s and Egypt in the 640s.
In 401, Synesius writes to Hypatia, the Alexandrian philosopher who was his teacher in Neo-Platonism, explaining the war situation in his city, Cyrene, and his disappointment of her, but, despite that, his love for her:
I am encompassed by the sufferings of my city, and disgusted with her, for I daily see the enemy forces, and men slaughtered like victims on an altar. I am breathing an air tainted by the decay of dead bodies. I am waiting to undergo myself the same lot that has befallen so many others, for how can one keep any hope, when the sky is obscured by the shadow of birds of prey?
Yet even under these conditions I love the country. Why then do I suffer? Because I am a Libyan, because I was born here, and it is here that I see the honoured tombs of my ancestors.[1]
Two other letters in the same year he wrote about the war brought on Pentapolis by the barbarians, as he calls them: Letter 104 and Letter 113. In Letter 104, given the title “Cowardly Behaviour in a War”, Synesius exposes the violence and cowardice of one Joannes the Phrygian, a man with long hair (he calls him, ‘hirsute beauty’), who claimed to be the right hand of the general of the army of Cyrenaica. After Joannes suddenly disappearing when the enemy was approaching, he comes back after five days, and as the two sides were facing each other for combat, Synesius describes his most cowardly deed: “What then? He pulls the horse’s head sharply to the side, turns and flees away at full gallop, covers his horse with blood, gives it full rein, incites it with frequent application of spear, whip, and voice. I really do not know which of the two to admire the more, the horse or the rider, for if the horse galloped up hill and downhill and over rough country and smooth alike, cleared ditches and banks at a bound, the horseman for his part, kept his seat in the saddle firm and unshaken. I am sure the enemy thought it a fine sight, and were only too anxious to have many such.” Synesius has but utter contempt to Joannes and his likes, men who are brave in peace-time but coward in wars, men who are violent, unjust and unfit for combat. “How often one sees the same men who are very courageous in peace-time showing themselves cowardly at the moment of combat!,” Synesius says. With his masterly rhetoric, he exposes Joannes’ cowardice, and shreds him to pieces, hoping that he would not come back again to practise his violent behaviour towards the poor citizens of Cyrenaica: “In future, we shall no longer see the guilty Joannes swaggering about the public square, and attacking with kicks and blows men of a peaceable disposition.” Letter 104 is addressed to his brother, Europtius, who lived at the time in Ptolemais, and who succeeded Synesius in becoming bishop of Ptolemais:
Letter 104: Cowardly Behavior in a War
How often one sees the same men who are very courageous in peace-time showing themselves cowardly at the moment of combat! That is to say, they are worthless everywhere. Thus it seems to me that everyone should be thankful to war, for it is an exact touchstone of the blood in the heart of each one of us. It takes away many boasters, and returns them to us more temperate men. In the future, we shall no longer see the guilty Joannes swaggering about the public square, and attacking with kicks and blows men of a peaceable disposition. Indeed, yesterday the proverb, or rather the oracle, received clear information, for you certainly know it as an oracle: There be no long-haired men who are not degenerates?
For some days now they have been warning us of the approach of the enemy. I thought that we ought to meet these. The leader of the Balagritae [a military unit] drew up his forces, and sallied out with them. Then, having occupied the plain first, we waited. The enemy did not appear. In the evening we went away home each of us, after we had arranged to return upon the following day.
During this time, Joannes the Phrygian was nowhere; at least he was invisible, but he spread rumours in secret, at one moment that he we shall no longer see the guilty Joannes swaggering about the public square, and attacking with kicks and blows men of a peaceable disposition had broken his leg and they had been obliged to amputate it, at another that he was suffering from asthma, later that some other untoward fate had overtaken him. Such tale-bearers kept drifting in from different sides, or so they pretended, the object being, no doubt, that no one should know into what retreat our man had slipped, or where he was concealed.
And you should have heard them in the midst of their narration deploring the unlucky misfortune with tears in their eyes. “Ah! Now is the moment when we need his generous spirit – strong hands like his. What wonderful things he would have done, how he would have shone!” In each case, crying “Oh, evil destiny!”, they wrung their hands and disappeared.
Of course, they all belong to that company which Joannes fed at his table, for no good purpose – men with long hair like himself, base creatures, “impudent thieves of lambs and goats” and, by the gods, sometimes of women also. Such are the henchmen that he has been preparing for a long time. To be a man amongst them he never attempts. That would be too difficult. He is a cunning fellow withal, and he seeks the best opportunities of appearing a man in the eyes of those who are real man, but methinks fortune has upset all his calculations famously.
For five days we had in vain sallied out in arms to find the enemy, but they were always at the frontier places which they were engaged in devastating. Then when Joannes was convinced that the enemy would not dare to come into the heart of the country, he himself appeared and is now turning everything into confusion.
He ill? Never! Why, he was even laughing at people who believed such a story. He had come from a great distance, he said, I know not whence. He had been called there to bring assistance, and it was owing to this that the districts which had called on him were saved, for the enemy did not invade, terrified as they were at the mere rumour of the approach of Joannes. Once he had tranquillised everything there, he rushed up, he said, to the menaced province. He is waiting for the barbarians, who may appear at any moment, so long as they are not aware of his presence, and so long as his name is not mentioned.
So, here he is, spreading confusion everywhere. He is claiming to be the general’s right hand, he is promising that in no time at all he will teach the art of victory. He is shouting “Front form! Fall into line! Form square to the flank!” In a word he is using all the words of the military profession without any knowledge of their meaning.
Thus some considered him a man of consequence and praised his talents, and were eager to become his pupils.
It was now late in the evening. It was time to pursue our attack. When we came down from the mountains, we pushed on to the plain. There four young men – peasants, as their clothes indicated – rushed to us at top speed shouting as loud as they could. No one had need of a diviner to see that they were in terror of the enemy, and that they were in a hurry to find refuge amongst our troops. Before they had time to tell us properly that the enemy was there, we saw some wretched creatures on horseback, men who, to judge from the look of them, had been pushed into battle merely by hunger, and were quite ready to risk their lives in order to possess of our goods.
The moment that they saw us, as we also saw them, before they were within javelin throw, they jumped from their horses, as is their way, to give battle on foot. I was of the opinion that we ought to do the same thing, for the ground did not lend itself to cavalry manoeuvres. But our noble friend said he would not renounce the arts of horsemanship, and insisted on delivering a cavalry attack.
What then? He pulls the horse’s head sharply to the side, turns and flees away at full gallop, covers his horse with blood, gives it full rein, incites it with frequent application of spear, whip, and voice. I really do not know which of the two to admire the more, the horse or the rider, for if the horse galloped up hill and downhill and over rough country and smooth alike, cleared ditches and banks at a bound, the horseman for his part, kept his seat in the saddle firm and unshaken. I am sure the enemy thought it a fine sight, and were only too anxious to have many such.
We could not give them this satisfaction, but you may imagine that we were disconcerted after having taken the promises of this hirsute beauty so seriously. So we drew up the line of battle to receive the enemy, if he should attack us. But we did not wish to take the initiative in the engagement ourselves. With such an example before us, the bravest of us distrusted his neighbour. Here nothing was a greater abomination than a head of hair, for the possessor seemed the most likely to betray us.
However, the enemy did not seem in a hurry to open the attack any more than we were, for they drew up their line of battle and waited for us, in order to drive us back, in case we should take the offensive. On both sides the troops stood watching each other. Finally they drew off to the left and then we to the right, but at a walking pace and without haste, so that the retreat might not have the appearance of a flight.
Notwithstanding all these anxieties, we tried to find out where in the world Joannes was. He had galloped without reining up as far as Bombaea, and he remained hidden in the cave there, like a field-mouse in its hole. Bombaea is a mountain full of caverns, where art and nature have combined to form an impregnable fortress. It has been long celebrated, and justly: they often compare it to the subterranean vaults of Egypt. But today everyone admits that there are no walls behind which one could be safer than at Bombaea, since even the most prudent of all men – I am too polite to say the most cowardly, the right word to use – has gone thither to hide himself, as to the surest refuge. The moment one enters this place, one is in a regular labyrinth, hard to get through, so that it by itself could provide places of refuge for Joannes.[2]
We have seen, as Letter 104 shows, that Synesius was an active participant in the defence of Cyrene. The letter which he sent to his brother, Euoptius, seems to have alarmed Euoptius and made him worry about his brother. He must have feared that he may lose his only brother in the war, and wrote to him asking him to stay away and be safe. Synesius would not take that: to him it was his duty to defend his country against the barbarian invasion – it was simply a matter of manhood, honour and being worthy of his valiant ancestors the Spartans. He, therefore, responds to his brother by writing Letter 113, given the title “On Going to War”:
Letter 113: On Going to War
How now? Shall we watch these foul fiends braving death so readily for the sake of others’ property, that they may not have to give up to the owners what they may have plundered? And shall we be sparing of ourselves, and cling to our lives, when the question is one of defending our country, our altars, our laws, and our property, all the possessions that we have enjoyed for so many years?
At this rate we shall no longer look like men. For my part, just as I am, I must go against these barbarians. I must make trial to see what these enemies are who stop at nothing, what sort of people they are who dare to laugh the Romans to scorn, even though faring as they do now. A dromedary with the mange, says the proverb, can shoulder the burden of many asses.
Quite apart from all this, I see that in such cases all those who do not think of anything except saving their lives, generally succumb, whereas those who are ready to make the sacrifice escape the danger. I shall be among these. I shall fight as if I were at the point of death, and I have no doubt at all that I shall survive. I am a Lacedaemonian [Spartan] by descent, and I remember the letter which the magistrates addressed to Leonidas[3]: “Let them fight as if doomed to die, and they will not die.”[4]
The Copts will do well by studying the life of Synesius of Cyrene and read his Letters and other writings. They will find a lot of similarities between what Synesius faced in the early 400s and what the Copts faced in the 640s. And from his actions and his reactions, they must learn something.
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[1] Letter 124, from The Letters of Synesius by Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolemais, translated by Augustine FitzGerald (London, Oxford University Press, 1926).
[2] Ibid, Letter 104.
[3] Leonidas I (r., 489 – 480 BC), a Spartan king.
[4] The Letters of Synesius, Letter 113.