The Gates are also mentioned in Procopius' History of the Wars: Book I. Here they are mentioned as the Caspian Gates and they are a source of diplomatic conflict between the Byzantines and the Sassanid Persians. When the current holder of the gates dies, he bequeaths it to Emperor Anastasius. Anatasius, unable and unwilling to finance a garrison for the gates, loses them in an assault by the Sassanid King Cabades (Kavadh I). After peace, Anastasius builds the city of Dara, which would be a focus point for war during the reign of Justinian and site of the Battle of Dara. In this war, the Persians once again bring up the gates during negotiations, mentioning that they block the pass to the Huns for the benefit of both Persians and Byzantines, and that the Persians deserve to be compensated for their service.[7]
It is not clear which precise location Josephus meant when he described the Caspian gates. It may have been the Gates of Derbent (lying due east, nearer to Persia), or it may have been the Darial Gorge, lying west, bordering Iberia, located between present-day Ingushetia and Georgia.
The height and scale of the wall is unknown but it is believed to reach that of mountains. It is made with blocks and sheets of iron, which is strengthened by molten metal and the tribes are unable to cross or scale it. At first glance, in terms of physical means, the "gates" assumes the formation of two colossal mountain ranges intersecting with one another as if it were a shut gate. But in the metaphysical sense, it acts as a barrier that holds Gog and Magog at bay and unseen from mortal eyes.
The walls of Derbent were originally expanded into a major fortified installation to guard the frontier under the reign of Shah Yezdigerd II during the middle of the 5th century. Under Shah Yezdigerd II, the Derbent defenses were merely a mud-brick wall, several meters thick and likely around 16 meters tall. Shah Khosrov Anushirvan during the 6th century further expanded the Derbent fortifications and built additional fortifications to its south. Derbent was double walled, both being about 4 meters thick, 18-20 meters tall, and 350-400 meters apart. Based on archaeological excavations from the 1970\u2019s, the original wall was mud-brick while the expanded wall was made of stone and was built on top of the original. With the 6th century additions there were 7 gates, 72 towers on the northern wall 27 towers on the southern wall. Both walls ran about 3500 meters from the shore up to the citadel on the hilltop overlooking the pass. Additionally, a wall was built from the citadel which stretched 45 km westward inland into the mountains. This wall connected several forts and watchtowers that were strategically placed to guard against anyone attempting to outflank the Derbent pass. In Derbent itself, the citadel sat on the hill top giving it a commanding view of the town and Caspian coast as far as the eye could see in both directions. In recent centuries much of the town was enclosed within the two walls, but it is unclear exactly was the layout during the Sasanian period and later. Additionally there was the Toprak-Kala fortress 20 km south of Derbent, a large fortress on the lowlands encircled by a ditch. It is thought site housed 10,000 horsemen and an additional 20,000 infantry (not to be confused with much more famous site in Uzbekistan\u2019s Khiva oasis).
To the south were additional layers of defensive fortifications. There were two more wall systems; the Ghilchilchay wall and the Besh-Barmak Wall further south. The Ghilghilchay wall was about 140 km south of Derbent, located at modern Gil-Gil Cay, Azerbaijan. The wall was likely constructed around the same time as Derbent\u2019s first wall as it is similarly made of mud-bricks. The wall ran 60 km from the coast up into the mountains to the west, just as the Derbent wall. Its height ranged from 4-6 meters tall with 135 towers, each approximately 8 meters tall. The mud bricks were made on site and their production resulted in the creation of a ditch to the wall\u2019s north. The local river ran in a zig-zag course and was used to bolster the wall\u2019s defenses. When the river ran to the north of the wall it added an additional obstacle to attackers. Where the river ran to the south of the wall, at elevated points on the river\u2019s southern bank additional forts were constructed. The wall was integrated with forts and barracks that had gates, but it seems most civilian traffic was guided through gaps in the wall, presumably these gaps could be blocked if under attack. The wall extended into the mountains up to the Chiraq-Kala fort, an inaccessible hilltop lookout and signal post. Chiraq-Kala overlooked the Ghilghilchay wall and much of the Caspian coast. During an attack by the Huns or Turks the garrison here could light the beacon and alert forces further south to prepare for an attack.
In later centuries the two great nomadic hosts to ride through the Caspian Gates took a different route than their predecessors. Both the Mongols and Tamerlane rode north through the gates after devastating Persia to attack the nomads living in the South Russian steppes. In pursuit of the former Shah of the Khwarezmian Empire, Jalal ad-Din, the Mongols entered the South Caucasus in 1221. They proceeded to raid Georgia before turning north through Derbent and the Caspian Gates. Penetrating into the North Caucasus steppes, the Mongols were met by an alliance of steppe nomads and lowland mountain tribes who the Mongols defeated. They went north and defeated the Rus at the Kalka River in 1223 before turning back to Chingiz Khan in the east. When the Mongols returned 14 years later they came directly from the east across the steppes, crossing the Volga before annihilating the Rus. A century and a half later, the great conqueror Tamerlane, from modern day Uzbekistan, rode north through the Caspian Gates while campaigning against the Golden Horde, the successor state of the Mongol Empire in the north-west Asia. After Derbent, the armies met at the Terek River in 1395 where Tamerlane defeated Khan Tokhtamysh which fatally crippled the Golden Horde, allowing the Russians to throw off the \u201CTartar Yoke\u201D.
The Caspian Gates first came under Russian dominion during Tsar Peter the Great\u2019s war against Persia in the early 18th century. From 1722 to 1723 Russian armies and navy moved south through the gates, conquering the entire western and southern Caspian Sea coasts down to Resht in modern Iran. In pursuit of transforming Russian in a European Great Power, Peter the Great sought to open trade route between Russia and India, looking to secure the same commercial opportunities England was seizing in the subcontinent. An additional motivation was to free the Christian slaves that had been taken captive during nomadic raids and sold to slave traders who shipped southwards to markets in Persia. The Caspian Gates at this time were divided into several khanates all under up Safavid Persian vassalage, many of which were based on the slave trade of Russian Christians.
Ragae, or Rei, is mentioned in the Apocryphal book of Tobit as already flourishing, 700 years before Christ, under the Assyrian empire. Under the foreign names of Europus and Arsacia, this city, 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian gates, was successively embellished by the Macedonians and Parthians, (Strabo, l. xi. p. 796.) Its grandeur and populousness in the ixth century are exaggerated beyond the bounds of credibility; but Rei has been since ruined by wars and the unwholesomeness of the air. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom. i. p. 279, 280. D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. p. 714.
Culture and religion are central to section 2. Christianity has shaped the culture of Iberia and Georgia from Late Antiquity to the present day, but when precisely was Iberian royalty converted and how long did it take for Christianity to become the dominant religion across Iberia? Stephen Rapp shows that royalty and ecclesiastical authorities in medieval Georgia and Armenia, as in Ethiopia, had powerful motives to postulate early Christianisation. Conversion stories were modified from the 7th century onwards; parity with Byzantium and independent status were 'ostensibly grounded in the first royal conversions to occur anywhere upon the Earth' (193). Rapp also argues persuasively that conversion will have taken centuries (182), an assessment echoed by Josef Rist (201-21). Rist touches upon Christian burial practice, and systematic work on its spread may well enable us to gain a better understanding of the chronology. Some of the following chapters venture beyond Transcaucasia. Of particular interest is Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan's survey of the image of the Iberians in Armenian literature of the 5th-7th centuries, of value more for this period than earlier times. Agathangelos' anachronistic report of a Hunnic invasion reaching the gates of Ctesiphon in the 3rd century may well have been inspired by the events of AD 395, and does not prove the hypothesis that there was an alliance between Iberians, Albanians and Armenians as early as the AD 250s (245). Shared Christian faith, Jan-Markus KÃtter argues persuasively, was often just used to legitimise alliances when these were politically opportune (304).
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