The Byzantine Fortress of Qasr Bashir

The Roman - Byzantine Fortress of Qasr Bashir in Jordan.

The Limes Arabicus

A chain of forts protecting Roman lands from Arab raids

The Limes Arabicus was a desert frontier of the Roman Empire, in the province of Arabia Petraea. It ran -at its biggest extension- for about 1,500 km, from Northern Syria to Southern Palestine and northern Arabia, forming part of the wider Roman limes system. It had several forts and watchtowers.

The reason of this defensive "Limes" was to protect the Roman "Province of Arabia" from attacks of the barbarian tribes of the Arabian desert. 

Next to the limes arabicus Trajan built a major road, the Via Nova Traiana, from Bostra to Aila on the Red Sea, a distance of 267 miles. Built between 111 and 114 AD, its primary purpose may have been to provide efficient transportation for troop movements and government officials. It was completed under Hadrian.

During the Severan dynasty (AD 193-235), the Romans strengthened their defenses on the Arabian frontier. They constructed several forts at the northwest end of the Wadi Sirhan, and they repaired and improved roads.

Qasr Bashir
Reproduced from: Campbell DB, Roman Auxiliary forts 27 BC - AD 378. Fortress Series 83. Osprey Military Publishing, 2009. P. 58.
(xlegio.ru/fortification/limes-arabicus)

Jordan

In Jordan there was no natural boundary other than desert all the way down to the Red Sea. Major communication routes here tended to run between oases and along the seasonal wadis. Linking Syria to the Arabia, the cities of the Decapolis, Petra and the ultimately the Gulf of Aqaba was the route known in the Bible as the King's Highway, parts of which came to be incorporated in the via nova Traiana, across which the Roman military presence was distributed.

Indeed the frontier here has long been recognised as more a zone than a delineated line and where the environment played an important part in the settlement pattern. In the province of Arabia there was the less tangible but increasingly important rise of tribal confederations of nomads with whom Rome had to treat and who in time became partners in the defence of the later empire.

Emperor Leo I
Ruler of the Eastern Empire from 457 to
474.  The Roman forts in Jordan were
still being funded and staffed with troops
during his reign.

With the annexation of Nabataean Arabia The Romans transferred the Legio III Cyrenaica from Egypt to the new province with auxiliaries. In 106 the unit was maybe based in Bostra, with the likelihood that smaller vexillations with other auxiliary units were distributed among the various cities and towns of Nabataea.

At the same time some new forts were erected together with the construction of a well-known pre-Roman road, the via nova Traiana, which linked Aqaba on the Arabian Gulf to the province of Syria in the north. Various units were stationed along and behind the desert line east of this main transfer road. In the early 3rd century significant construction work was done, probably in the Severan period. Pushing out in to the desert regions in north-east Arabia to control the oases with the erection of new forts and new road building.

The emperor Diocletian's army reform around 300 also affected the form and distribution of Roman military installations. About this time the Roman army constructed three new but smaller legionary sites in Betthorus-Lejjun, Adrou-Udruh and Aila-Aqaba and smaller sized other forts. Most of those garrisons were still maintained in many of the locations into the 4th century and only successively reduced to be compensated with greater use of control exerted through diplomacy and subsidy with the leaders of the local nomadic population.

In AD 106 the Romans under Emperor Trajan achieved control of the region east of the Jordan River, which was previously ruled by the Nabataeans. Until then, the Nabataean kingdom had provided a buffer between the Roman Empire and the threat of enemies to the east. Historians do not know how and why the Romans took direct control. Perhaps the lack of a legitimate successor to the deceased Nabataean king resulted in a power vacuum. The Romans annexed the area and called it Provincia Arabia. It was governed by a senatorial legate appointed by the emperor, and its capital was Bostra (or Bosra) in southern Syria.

Qasr Bashir

Qasr Bashir is an extremely well preserved Roman fortress that lies in the Jordanian desert. Unlike many Roman remains, Qasr Bashir is exceptionally well preserved, having never been re-built by later civilizations.

Qasr Bshir belongs to the chain of forts and watchtowers that is known as the Limes Arabicus and was meant to protect the province of Arabia against roaming desert nomads. They were not extremely dangerous or exceptionally violent, but their dromedaries made them swift, and if trouble arose, they could pillage large parts of the Roman countryside. The Limes Arabicus had to counter this threat, and Mobene was one of the fortifications.

Built at the beginning of the fourth Century AD and known as Mobene, the walls of Qasr Bashir still stand intact, at a height of up to 20 feet in places, while the main entrance remains to this day. The huge corner towers still rise up two stories from the ground.

It is likely that Qasr Bashir was originally home to an auxiliary cavalry unit, charged with defending the Roman frontier and keeping the peace in the surrounding area. 

The courtyard, which has two cisterns, is on all sides surrounded by rooms, twenty-three in number, which have been identified as stables. There was a second story, where the soldiers must have slept. The roof of these barracks reached the same height as the rampart walk, creating a really wide fighting platform. One room, opposite the main gate, may have been the headquarters, some kind of sanctuary, or both.

Because each of the twenty-three stables was used by three horses, and because a cavalry unit of frontier soldiers appears to have numbered between 120 and 150 men.

The Roman Limes defense system.

The Roman Frontier in Jordan, Part I
The short film The Roman Frontier in Jordan is part of the multimedia DVD-project Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The aims of the film are to show fascinating pictures from the Roman frontier in the Middle East and to connect people from different countries through their common history and archaeology. The Roman fort of Qasr Bshir is one of the best preserved installation of the Roman army known today.

Southern tower



Inscribed above the gate.

The central gate, which faces the shallow valley to the southwest, is flanked by two towers that are about half as large as the corner towers. The building inscription of the fort, a rarity in this part of the limes, survives and mentions the emperors of the First Tetrarchy
.
Optimis maximisque principibus nostris Caio Aurelio
Valerio Diocletiano Pio Felici Invicto Augusto et
Marco Aurelio Valerio Maximiano Pio Felici Invicto Augusto et
Flavio Valerio Constantio et Galerio Valerio Maximiano
nobilissimis Caesaribus Castra Praetorii Mobeni fossamentis
Aurelius Asclepiades praeses provinciae Arabiae
perfici curavit
.
In honor of our best and greatest rulers, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletian, our pious, lucky, and unconquered emperor, and Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximian, our pious, lucky, and unconquered emperor, and to Flavius Valerius Constantius and Galerius Valerius Maximianus, our noblest caesars, has Aurelius Asclepiades, praeses of the province of Arabia, ordered to build Castra Praetorium Mobene from its foundations.

This inscription allows us to date the construction of the fort to 293-305, when the Romans constructed more forts in this sector of the frontier.

The End of the Roman Frontier in Arabia

The Roman military presence in Arabia began to decline in the mid-400s when forces were diverted to other threatened frontiers. In the early 500s, Justinian turned over the defense of the southeastern frontier to the Ghassanids, a Christian Arab tribe. Around AD 530, the troops were withdrawn and the limes Arabicus ceased to exist.

The forts of el-Lejjun, Khirbet el-Fityan, Rujm Beni Yasser, Qasr Bshir, and Da'janiya were abandoned at this time. The numerous watchtowers provide no evidence of occupation in the sixth or early seventh centuries. At least by the early 600s, the fortified frontier system in Palestine and Transjordan no longer existed. This withdrawal of defenses paved the way for the eventual Muslim conquest of the region in the 600s.

Sources:   (livius.org/q/qasr_bshir)      (gla.ac.uk)      (amanfrommoab-fort-bashir)

The frontier zone south of Wadi al-Hasa was called the limes Palaestina, which extended to the Red Sea at Aila ('Aqaba). In this region, ten castella and a legionary camp have been identified.
(vkrp.org)

Qasr Bashir

Cistern

Qasr Bashir

The Roman Frontier in Jordan, Part II

Roman Forts on the Arabian Frontier

Diocletian engaged in a major military expansion in the region, building a number of forts (castella), watchtowers, and fortresses along the fringe of the desert just east of the Via Nova. The term used for this north-to-south line of military installations is limes Arabicus, which means "Arabian frontier." This line of defense extended from south of Damascus to Wadi al-Hasa. The region from Wadi Mujib to Wadi al-Hasa contained four castella and a legionary camp.

Gold Coins found at Byzantine Fortress of Apollonia

A pot of gold from the Crusades worth up to $500,000 has been found buried in an ancient Roman-Byzantine fortress in Israel.  The coins were buried by Christian soldiers of the order of the Knights Hospitalier as the Crusaders faced an unstoppable attack by a huge Muslim army.

$500,000 in Crusader Gold Coins Found

• Gold found in the Roman-Byzantine fortress of Apollonia.

A pot of gold from the Crusades worth up to $500,000 has been found buried in an ancient Roman fortress in Israel.

The coins were buried by Christian soldiers of the order of the Knights Hospitalier as the Crusaders faced an unstoppable attack by a huge Muslim army.

The knights were annihilated in April 1265.

The coins - worth a fortune even in 1265 when they were thought to have been buried - were deliberately hidden inside a broken jug to prevent them being discovered.

The fortress was destroyed in April 1265 by forces of Mamluks who overwhelmed the Crusaders - and the treasure only survived due to the quick thinking of one of the defenders.

'It was in a small juglet, and it was partly broken,' Oren Tal of the University of Tel Aviv told Fox News.

'The idea was to put something broken in the ground and fill it with sand, in order to hide the gold coins within. If by chance somebody were to find the juglet, he won’t excavate it, he won’t look inside it to find the gold coins. Once we started to sift it, the gold came out.'

The Roman fortress in Apollonia National Park has yielded a huge number of archaeological treasures - but scientists excavating layer from the thirteenth century were stunned to unearth a literal pot of gold.

The clay container had more than 100 gold dinals from the time when the Crusaders occupied the fortress, originally built by the Romans.

Orlando Bloom portrays a Crusader in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven

The joint team from Tel Aviv University and Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority were working at Apollonia National Park, an ancient Roman settlement on the coast used by the Crusaders between 1241 and 1265, when they literally found a pot of gold.

“All in all, we found some 108 dinals and quarter dinars, which makes it one of the largest gold coin hoards discovered in a medieval site in the land of Israel,” said Prof. Oren Tal, chairman of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology.

The Christian order of the Knights Hospitaller had taken up residence in the castle in Apollonia; it was one of their most important fortresses in the area. The hoard of coins was buried on the eve of the site's downfall after a long siege by a large and well-prepared Muslim army.

The hoard of coins themselves -- found on June 21, 2012, by Mati Johananoff, a student of TAU Department of Archaeology -- date to the times of the Fatimid empire, which dominated northern Africa and parts of the Middle East at the time. Tal estimates their date to the 10th and 11th centuries, although they were circulated in the 13th century.

“Some were minted some 250 to 300 years before they were used by the Hospitaller knights,” he explained. The coins are covered in icons and inscriptions: the names and legends of local sultans, Tal said, as well as blessings.

Some also bear a date, and even a mint mark, a code that indicates where it was minted, whether Alexandria, Tripoli, or another ancient mint.

“Fatimid coins are very difficult to study because they are so informative,” Tal told FoxNews.com. “The legends are very long, the letters are sometimes difficult to decipher.”

The coins are clearly of great value, both historically and intrinsically, though putting a price tag on them is no easy feat: Value is a flexible thing, Tal explained. Israeli newspaper Haaretz pegged the find at $100,000. Tal noted that Fatimid dinars sell for $3,000 to $5,000 apiece, meaning the stash could be worth closer to half a million.
.
(UK Daily Mail)

A Mamluk Warrior

History

The town was settled by Phoenicians in the 6th or 5th century BC, and named Arshuf after Resheph, the Canaanite god of fertility and the underworld. It was then a part of the Persian Empire and governed from Sidon. Phoenicians of Arshuf produced precious purple dye, derived from murex mollusks, which they exported to the Aegean.

During the Hellenistic period it was an anchorage town, ruled by Seleucids and renamed Apollonia, as the Greeks identified Reshef with Apollo.

Under Roman rule, the size of the town increased. It was an important settlement between Jaffa and Caesarea along Via Maris, the coastal road. In 113 AD, Apollonia was destroyed partially by an earthquake, but recovered quickly. The harbor was built, and trade with Italy and North Africa developed.

During the Byzantine period, the town extended to cover an area of 70 acres. In the 5th and 6th century AD it was the second largest city in Sharon valley, after Caesarea, populated by Christian and Samaritans, having an elaborate church and a prosperous glass industry.

In 640 AD, the town was captured by Muslims, and the Semitic name Arsuf was restored. The town's area decreased to about 22 acres and, for the first time, it was surrounded by a fortified wall with buttresses, to resist the constant attacks of Byzantine fleets from the sea. Large marketplaces appeared, and pottery production developed. In 809 AD, following the death of Harun al-Rashid, the local Samaritan community was destroyed and their synagogue ruined.

In 1101 Arsuf fell to a Crusader army led by Baldwin I of Jerusalem. The Crusaders, who called it Arsur, rebuilt the city's walls and created the Lordship of Arsur in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1187 Arsuf was captured by the Muslims, but fell again to the Crusaders on September 7, 1191 after a battle between Richard I of England and Saladin.

John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut (1177—1236) became Lord of Arsuf in 1207 when he married Melisende of Arsuf (born c.1170). Their son John of Arsuf (c.1211—1258) inherited the title. The title then passed to John of Arsuf's eldest son Balian of Arsuf (1239—1277). He built new walls, the big fortress and new harbor (1241). From 1261, the city was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller.

In 1265 sultan Baibars, ruler of the Mamluks, captured Arsur, after 40 days of siege. The Mamluks razed the city walls and the fortress to their foundations, fearing a return of the Crusaders. The destruction was so complete that the site was abandoned. In 1596, Ottoman tax registers recorded a village there with 22 families and 4 bachelors and later a village called al-Haram existed adjacent to the ruins until it was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.    (Wikipedia)

Apollonia National Park

The ruined Crusader fortress

Mini reconstruction of the fortress.

Called The Burnt Room’ Crusaders shot ballista stones & arrows at the Mameluke soldiers (1291), as they did from other rooms that faced the bridgehead and the ‘dry moat’

Byzantine Fortress of Maiden's Castle

Maiden's Castle off the southern coast of Turkey.

Byzantine Fortress  -  Kizkalesi Castle or Maiden's Castle and Korykos Castle 


Corycus  was an ancient city in Cilicia Trachaea, Anatolia, located at the mouth of the river called Şeytan deresi; the site is now occupied by the town of Kızkalesi, Mersin Province,Turkey.
                                                                       .
The town of Corycus is mentioned by Livy, and by Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, and Stephanus of Byzantium. In antiquity Corycus was an important harbor and commercial town. It was the port of Seleucia, where, in 191 BCE, the fleet of Antiochus the Great was defeated by the Romans. In the Roman times it preserved its ancient laws; the emperors usually kept a fleet there to watch over the pirates. Corycus was also a mint in antiquity and some of its coins survive.

Corycus was controlled by the Byzantine Empire. Justinian I restored the public baths and a hospital. Alexios I Komnenos re-equipped the fortress, which had been dismantled. At the beginning of the 12th century the Byzantines built a supplementary castle on a small island. 
                                                                         .
This castle was later called "maidens castle", because it was told that a king held his daughter here in captivity until she was killed by a venomous snake. It was prophesied she would die by a snake bite. So she was taken to the sea castle to protect her, but a serpent was taken by basket to the castle, she was bitten and died. 
                                                     .
Corycus was conquered by the Armenians soon after it was rebuilt by the Byzantines. The Armenians held it until the end of the 14th century, as the last stronghold of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The city was then handed over to the Lusignans of Cyprus. It was taken by the Mamelukes, and again by Peter I of Cyprus. In the late 14th century it fell again to the Turks. From 1448 or 1454 it belonged alternately to the Karamanlis, the Egyptians, the Karamanlis a second time, and finally to the Osmanlis.

Maiden Castle  -  Castle in the Sea

The castles are located near Mersin on the south coast of Turkey.

The ruins of the city are extensive. Among them are a triumphal arch, a necropolis with a beautiful Christian tomb, sarcophagi, etc. The two medieval castles, one on the shore, the other in an islet, connected by a ruined pier, are partially preserved; the former was reputed impregnable. 
                                                           .
The walls of the castle on the mainland contain many pieces of columns; and a mole of great unhewn rocks projects from one angle of the fortress about a hundred yards across the bay. Three churches are also found, one decorated with frescoes. The walls of the ancient city may still be traced, and there appear to be sufficient remains to invite a careful examination of the spot.

 Korykos Castle on the mainland. 

Kizkalesi Castle or Maiden's Castle, locally known as Kizkalesi, lies on a small island, some 400 meters from the coast, in the bay of the town with the same name in the province of Mersin in Turkey.
                                     .
Together with the opposite Korykos Castle on the mainland, this sea castle protected the port of Korykos and of course their histories are linked closely together and almost identical.

In ancient times there was an antique harbor city named Korykos or Corycus here. It is possible that the site of Korykos was heavily fortified prior to the Arab invasions, but there is no evidence to confirm this.
                                                                                     .
Around 1099 Korykos was conquered by the Byzantines. The erection of the castles can probably be credited to the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Except for reconstruction during and after the Armenian period of occupation in the late 12th century (far more extensive in the sea castle than in the land castle), the circuit walls and towers of both castles date from the early 12th century.

The emperor's daughter, Anna Comnena, tells us that the royal eunuch Eustathius was dispatched as an admiral and was directed to fortify Korykos. The strategy was to defend it from any possible seizure by the Crusader Bohemund I de Guiscard. A large garrison was maintained at Korykos under the command of a certain Strategus Strabo. Exactly when the Armenians occupied the Byzantine castles at Korykos is unknown.
                                                            .
By 1198/99 the site seems to have been under the control of Leo I, King of Armenian Cilicia, as Simon, the Baron of Korykos, was in attendance at his coronation. Following Vahram's brief tenure as Lord of Korykos (1210-12), the Hethumid Baron Oshin held the position until the late 1260's. In the 4th quarter of the 13th century the Armenian historian Hethum followed Grigoris as master of the port. Some years later he died tragically in a battle against the Mamluks. In 1318 Hethum's son, another Oshin, took 300 troops from the garrison at Korykos and succeeded (temporarily) in driving out a band of Turks.

In 1360 Peter I, the King of Cyprus, assumed control over Korykos when it became clear that the Mamluks were soon to conquer all of Cilicia. Robert of Lusignan was dispatched from Cyprus to administer the port. With Cypriot assistance the residents of Korykos were able to repulse a Karamanid attack in 1367. This fortified port proved to be a profitable toll station until its capture by the Karamanids in 1448.
                                                                 .
Since Kizkalesi castle is protected by a natural water barrier as well as the formidable shoals of the island, the Byzantine constructed only a single, somewhat geometrical circuit with square towers. The smooth ashlar in the castle consists entirely of materials taken from the neighboring abandoned late antique city. This original construction survives only at the south and east and is in sharp contrast to the Armenian reconstruction (with rounded salients) at the northwest. The plan conforms to the topography of the island.

(Maiden's Castle)                (Wikipedia - Corycus)

A plan of Kizkalesi Castle taken from 'The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia' by RW. Edwards.

A plan of Korykos Castle taken from 'The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia' by RW. Edwards.

The Second Battle of Marcellae

Medieval Bulgarian warriors. 
Khan Asparuh crosses the Danube in 680 AD. 



 

The Second Battle of Marcellae (792 AD)

• “The Bulgarians are a huge, mighty and warlike people that have subdued all their neighboring nations. One horseman of theirs can face 100 or 200 horsemen of the infidels. When they go to war they form lines – in front are the archers with their bows, and behind are the women and children…”
  Abu al-Hassan Ali ibn Hussein ibn Ali al-Massoudi, 10th Century AD

The greatest enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire were the Arabs, the Turks and the Bulgarians.  This article deals with the early invasion and establishment of the Bulgarian Empire on Roman soil directly up against Constantinople itself. 
                                                                    .
The Romans and Bulgarians clashed at the Second Battle of Marcellae.   It took place in 792 at Markeli, near the modern town of Karnobat in south eastern Bulgaria. It is not to be confused with the earlier battle at the same place.
                                                                               .
In the last quarter of the 8th century Bulgaria overcame the internal political crisis after the end of the rule of the Dulo. The khans Telerig and Kardam managed to consolidate the central authority and put an end of the quarrels among the nobility.

Roman Emperor Constantine VI (right of the cross) presiding over
the Second Council of Nicaea. 

The Bulgarians finally had the opportunity to intensify their campaigns in Macedonia and annex the region and its Slavic population to their state. In 789 they penetrated deep into the valley of the Struma river and heavily defeated the Byzantines, killing the strategos of Thrace Filites. 
                                                                                .
In order to distract the Bulgarian attention from Macedonia, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VI started a campaign in northern Thrace in April 791. The armies met near the fortress of Provat (20 km east of Odrin) and the Byzantines were forced to retreat but their defeat was not decisive and in the following year the campaign was renewed.
.
Forces Involved


It is maddening for a historian to try and deal with so many of the Byzantine wars because there is so very little information on events that were often of major importance.  In the Battle of Marcellae there is next to no information.  So one must speculate. 
                                                .
ROMANS   -   At the head of his troops, the Emperor himself was marching directly into enemy held and fortified territory.  It is fair to say that all available troops would be with the Emperor and this would be considered a major campaign.
                                                              .
Historians speculate that the Roman army would have numbered in the 80,000 to 90,000 range at this point.  Most of the forces would be stationed along the frontiers facing the Arabs or Persia.  Other troops would be in Greece, Italy, the Crimea and Balkan frontier posts.  The Emperor might head an invading army of perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 men.  That number was often considered a standard size for major operations.
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The Roman force would have been a combination of infantry and cavalry units near Constantinople.  The full-time units were the tagmata.  They were the professional standing army of the Empire.

Eastern Roman Infantry

                                             .
The tagmata were exclusively heavy cavalry units and formed the core of the imperial army on campaign, augmented by the provincial levies of thematic troops who were more concerned with local defense.


BULGARIANS   -   There is no way to know numbers, but it is very likely the Bulgarians would have fielded a force perhaps equal to the Romans.
                                                 .
The army consisted of a Bulgar cavalry and a Slavic infantry. The core of the Bulgarian army was the heavy cavalry, which consisted of 12,000–30,000 heavily armed riders. At its height in the 9th and 10th centuries, it was one of the most formidable military forces in Europe and was feared by its enemies. There are several documented cases of Byzantine commanders abandoning an invasion because of a reluctance to confront the Bulgarian army on its home territory.
                           .
The Bulgars were well versed in the use of stratagems. They often held a strong cavalry unit in reserve, which would attack the enemy at an opportune moment. They also sometimes concentrated their free horses behind their battle formation to avoid surprise attacks from the rear.They used ambushes and feigned retreats, during which they rode with their backs to the horse, firing clouds of arrows on the enemy. If the enemy pursued disorganized, they would turn back and fiercely attack them.
                                         .
The Bulgarian army was well armed according to the Avar model: the soldiers had asabre or a sword, a long spear and a bow with an arrow-quiver on the back. On the saddle they hung a round shield, a mace and a lasso, which the Bulgarians calledarkani. On their decorated belts the soldiers carried the most necessary objects such as flints and steel, a knife, a cup and a needle case. The heavy cavalry was supplied with metal armour and helmets. The horses were also armoured. Armour was of two types — chain-mail and plate armour. The commanders had belts with golden or silver buckles which corresponded to their rank and title.
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The infantry of the newly formed state was composed mainly of Slavs, who were generally lightly armed soldiers, although their chieftains usually had small cavalry retinues. The Slavic footmen were equipped with swords, spears, bows and wooden or leather shields. However, they were less disciplined and less effective than the Bulgar cavalry.


VIDEO  -  Troops of Eastern Roman Empire-681 AD.  This clip is from a Bulgarian Movie made in 1981.  No CG or special effects are used.  These are real people marching.  It helps bring alive what it must have been like to see a Byzantine army on the march.

The Battle
                                                                           .
In the summer of 792 Constantine VI led his army north and on 20 July was confronted by the Bulgarians under Khan Kardam near the border castle Marcelae. 
                                                .
The Khan had built ramparts blocking the roads to the Rish Pass and the capital Pliska.  Rather than seeking out the Roman army the Khan awaited an attack in his fortified positions.
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For several days the emperor did not dare to attack but by the end of July he was convinced by "false astrologists" (according to the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor) that the stars boded victory.  He attacked the Bulgarians in their prepared positions.

Victorious Bulgar warrior with captive,
featured on an ewer from the
 Treasure of Nagyszentmiklos.

Before the beginning of the battle, while awaiting the Byzantine assault, the Bulgarian ruler secretly placed part of his cavalry behind the hills surrounding the battlefield.
                                       .
The Byzantines, naturally, attacked in battle formation, but the uneven terrain led to a certain degree to its disruption, which was immediately used by Khan Kardam and the Bulgarian forces counter-attacked the enemy.  The Bulgarian counterattack was a great success against the disorganized Romans.


The hidden Bulgarian cavalry went round the Byzantines and cut their way back to their fortified camp and the fortress of Marcellae.  The Bulgarians took the supplies, the treasury and the tent of the emperor. They chased Constantine VI to Constantinople killing a great number of soldiers. Many Byzantine commanders and officers perished in the battle.
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A weapon called arkani was used by the Bulgarians in this battle: the arkani consisted of a long pole with an attachment similar to a lasso at one end. It was an excellent weapon against cavalry as the rider could easily be pulled out of the saddle by a skilled warrior, armed with the arkani.

Khans of the Bulgarian Empire.

The Aftermath
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It was a total and humiliating defeat for the Romans.  Constantine VI was forced to conclude peace with Kardam and had to pay tribute. Four years later (in 796) the emperor stopped the paying leading to a new war in Thrace which ended without a decisive battle.  The hostilities between Bulgaria and Byzantium continued under Kardam's successor Krum.
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The victory had great political significance. The decades of crisis were finally overcome, the Byzantines were forced once again to pay tribute to the Khans. Bulgaria entered the 9th century consolidated, stronger and united which was an important factor for the string of victories scored by Krum against the Byzantines.
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(Wikipedia)

VIDEO  -  681 AD: The Glory of Khan (Bulgarian: 681 г.: Величието на хана) is an 1981 three-part Bulgarian historical action and drama film telling the story of khan Asparuh and the events around the founding of the medieval Bulgarian state in 681 AD. It was shot and released on the occasion of the 13-century anniversary of Bulgaria.

The fortress of Markeli's Well Tower on the banks of the Mochuritsa.
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Markeli acquired its strategic importance in the late 7th century, when the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire and its expansion turned it into a vital frontier stronghold just south of the Balkan Mountains. It would often change hands between Bulgarians and Byzantines, who would use it as a favourable starting point for military campaigns southwards and northwards respectively.

Markeli first came under Bulgarian rule in 705, when it, together with the whole region of Zagore, was ceded to Bulgaria by Justinian II.

Ruins of the basilica within the castle.
.Archaeological research of the fortress has been conducted since 1986. It has revealed that the castle was built in Late Antiquity (the early Byzantine period).  


The fortifications were constructed out of crushed stones with integrated rows of bricks and are thought to date to the reign of either Anastasius I (491–518) or Justinian I (527–565), i.e. the late 5th to mid-6th century. The ramparts were up to 10 metres (33 ft) high and had over 3-metre (9.8 ft) ditches before them.   he entire fortress, including the embankments dating to the early 9th century, had an area of 173 acres (0.70 km²).

The ruins of a Christian church (basilica) that have been unearthed in the eastern part of the castle are equally old as the fortifications. A well tower was positioned in the vicinity of the river in order to control access to the fortress and provide water for the defenders. An ancient bridge crossed the river near the tower, and an underground passage served as another way for the inhabitants to enter or leave Markeli.  

Overview of the castle ruins.
.In 792, Markeli was once more in the centre of a major Byzantine–Bulgarian conflict.   The second battle of Marcellae came during a long period of aggression between Byzantium and Bulgaria, with Bulgarian ruler Kardam and Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI each invading foreign territory in the past few years. Due to strategic errors, the Byzantines suffered a heavy blow in this battle.   

The Bulgarians and Romans at 800 AD.
The invasion of the Bulgarian people into the Eastern Roman Empire was one of
the greatest military challenges faced by any nation.  The Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars
lasted for nearly 800 years.