1 – The land of the great dam, i.e. the city, and therefore the surroundings of Ma’rib, in the current hinterland of Yemen, seem to be the places of origin of the Ghassanid Dynasty: the great Middle-Eastern House which, due to its antiquity and power can certainly surpass the history of all the European reigning families by centuries. To affirm that the area of origin is identifiable in the capital of the biblical Kingdom of Saba, would be an oral tradition known in southern Syria; which explains the transfer of the Ghassanide family following the collapse of the great dam that made the city flourishing, and its extraordinary flooding. The local proverb “They dispersed like the people of Saba” would refer precisely to this episode (Cf. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghassanidi#Sovrani_ghassanidi).

It is historically certain, however, that the Ghassanid House was already in Byzantine Syria before the great (or more famous) collapse of the structure in 542. In fact, the Ghassanid King al Harith b. Jabala lived in an area that extended from the interior of the Empire of Constantinople and along its borders, up to the vicinity of Medina, already at least a few decades before the collapse of the great dam. He had helped the Byzantines with his warriors to repel the aggression of the Sassanid Persians, and had received the title of Patrician as a reward in 529: a mainly military honor, reserved in this case to an ally who controlled and defended a sensitive border (Cf G.RAVEGNANI, Soldiers and wars in Byzantium, Bologna 2009) The dominion of the Family had progressively extended from the areas of ancient settlement south of Damascus to Medina (Cf. W.CAMPBELL, The Koran and the Bible in the light of history and science, Orlando 202, p. 269). That is, in territories that were located within the Empire, along its borders (periodically ephemeral) and outside them, and in which the Ghassanids had carried out their work of supporting the state. We have outdated and distorted information on the relations that existed between the Roman Empire (both in the East and in the West) and the peoples we are used to defining as “barbarians”, especially from the period close to the late Empire. The populations driven by population growth or food shortages, dependent on the alternation of the climatic regime, were forced to look for new settlement lands, earn them or take them by force. Using their warriors as a tank for the imperial army was one of the reasons for settling these peoples in areas very close to the Roman state which progressively ended up opening its borders to the new arrivals. Who, often settling in sparsely inhabited areas, maintained their own social structure and traditional rulers who in turn recognized the distant imperial authority. “In the West – Werner affirms with an explanation that is also perfectly suited to the eastern part of the Roman domain – the Empire was no longer only surrounded by the regna but was to a large extent composed of these regna whose kings still recognized the imperial authority ” (Cf. K.F.WERNER, Birth of Nobility, Turin 2000, p.135).

In the Arabian Peninsula, the imperial pole of attraction acted not only due to shocking and dramatic phenomena such as the failure of a dam; but over time it constituted a constant attraction as a production center, destination and market for local products and those that came from India and Ethiopia; and that in the southern Kingdom of the Ghassanids they found the most important stage before going up again towards Syria and the Mediterranean. Strabo recalls how already at the time of the emperor Augustus the fame of the immense goods that were or transited in the southern lands of the Peninsula had prompted the sovereign to send his captain Elio Gallo to explore the area and make friends with its inhabitants. “The emperor -writes Strabo- had proposed to conciliate those peoples or to subjugate them, since these at all times had the reputation of being very rich, because they used to exchange their aromas and herbs for the silver and gold of foreigners their precious stones” (Cf. STRABO, Geography, 1, 16).

Therefore, minerals and products of the collection and cultivation of plants then considered rare passed along the caravan roads; and with the loads went merchants and farmers together with their families; later also the soldiers who were called to swell the ranks of the army. The extraordinary economic situation of a nation surrounded by vast deserts was due to the ability of its inhabitants to build impressive works, capable of modifying or canceling the negative consequences of the climate and the impact of the desert in its vicinity.

At least from the 11th century BC. and up to the eighth century, the Sabeans had designed and built a dam that became ever more enormous. A lake basin that regimented and collected the waters of at least seventy mountain rivers, using them to preserve the area from sudden floods and irrigate hundreds of square kilometers of land (Cf. B.LUPPI, Gli Arabi prima di Maometto, Messina-Florence 1974, p. 51).

Archaeological research has established that primitive works with earth barriers and canalizations had already begun at least around 2000 BC, and lasted until the old dam came to life. On the one hand it was necessary to expand the flow of water following the increase in population and market demand; on the other hand, continuous maintenance was essential, which served to maintain the solidity of the structure and to free the exits from the silt that accumulated there. For this reason, around 500 BC, the height of the dam was about 7 meters; and in 115 BC, following the restoration carried out, it had reached 14 meters (Cf. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diga_di_Ma%27rib). It is clear that, in the event of a collapse of the structure, the waters would have disastrously spilled over an immense territory, with the consequent ruin of crops and commerce, and a more or less long impoverishment of the population. Large-scale collapses occurred several times over the centuries, and are remembered by inscriptions found on the site and which also recall the restoration works. The first inscription found dates back to the 4th century AD; a second one, of one hundred lines, found in Ma’rib, dates back to the years between 451 and 456; three others recall the restoration work carried out by the Abyssinian king Abraha (d. towards 553) who had also occupied the Kingdom of the Sabeans. Among these is the large stele of 539 which commemorates the reconstruction of a part of the dam (Cf. B.LUPPI, cit., p.50). To get an idea of the great amount of maintenance, just remember that the works of this period they had required the commitment of 20,000 men and the use of 14,000 camels (Cf. K.ROMEY, Colpita la grande dam di Marib, engineering marvel of antiquity, in National Geographic Italia, 3 June 2015). However, the work must not have been flawless; and probably a disastrous event irreparably affected the structure which collapsed definitively and irreparably within a few decades, even causing the emigration of a good part of the inhabitants and the subsequent desertification of the territory. In fact, our imagination often only remembers the sunny desert expanses of Arabia; while in the area there has never been a periodic lack of heavy rainfall and flooding, as demonstrated by what happened in a large part of the Middle-Eastern Peninsula in May 2023 (Cf. https://www.tgcom24.mediaset.it/mondo /floods-in-saudi-arabia-the-desert-turns-into-a-lake-video_3176453-201802a.shtml).

There are numerous memories of the floods that occurred between Upper Mesopotamia and Arabia: the Byzantine historian Giorgio Cedreno, in his work A concise history of the world (written in the mid-11th century), for example, recalls the flood that hit Edessa in 521, submerged by the Sirte river “as if it were the sea”: “magna, atque celebras Urbs deluge Sirti amnis, qui per eam decurrit, afflicta est. Maris enim instar ille exundans Domos una cum habitantibus abripuit, atque submersit” (Cf. M.BONITO. Terra tremante, Naples 1691, p.300). Of particular importance seem to me the news that tell of particular atmospheric perturbations that between 547 and 548 hit the capital of the Empire and vast areas of the Middle East. Girolamo Bardi, in the Summary over the chronological age of the world, fixes the news of the extraordinary flooding of the Nile that submerged a large part of Egypt to 547 (Id., p. 319); and St. Theophanes, the confessor, in his Chronography recalls the very intense rains that fell on Constantinople in 748 (Id., p. 320). I am sure that these vast and repeated floods, if also extended to the southern part of the peninsula, could have inflicted fatal damage on the great dam, which definitively collapsed in those decades (the disaster can recall, to an even greater extent, what happened in 1963 in Italy with the disaster of the Vajont dam which caused the death of thousands of people), causing the definitive and more massive migration of the Sabeans towards the northern areas of the peninsula where many of their compatriots had already settled.

2 – It is an inveterate habit of almost all royal families or large noble families to gild their genealogy with the inclusion, more or less probable, of very noble ancestors who bring prestige to their home. Among the earliest examples of alleged earthly ancestors (and not imaginative divine ancestors, as was the custom in antiquity), the Roman emperor Licinius claimed to be descended from Philip the Arab, the first Christian Roman emperor (Cf. Cf. M .SORDI, I Cristiani e l’Impero romano, Como 2006, p. 137) who also the Ghassanid Princes consider as an illustrious exponent of the House. Philip was a Christian is a widely proven fact, and on which Marta Sordi clarified. Which recalls how the emperor was born in Trachonitide, near Bosra, an episcopal see already from the first decades of the third century with Beryl, and also a theological school with doctrinal deviations (especially in Christology) fought by Origen (Id., pp. 136- 137). Just with Origen, Philip the Arab and his wife Otacilia Severa were in epistolary relations (Cf. EUSEBIO DA CESAREA, Historia Ecclesiastica, 36, 3); and St. John Chrysostom recalls how in 244 in Antioch the emperor was forbidden by the local bishop Babila to enter the church for the celebration of Easter. St. Babila, in fact, contested Philip’s killing of his predecessor Gordian III, according to a widely spread and accredited rumor, which took place during the war against the Sassanids (Cf. St. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, Oration on St. Babila, 6) . Even if Philip adopted the Roman custom of divinizing his father after his death, the gesture must be understood among those political acts whose purpose was based on the attempt not to antagonize pagan subjects (Cf. M.L.MECKLER, Philyp the Arab and Revel Claimants of the later 240, at http://www.roman-emperors.org/) Philip (Marcus Julius Philippus), was the son of Julius Marinus, a Syrian who had Roman citizenship and who therefore was a prominent personality if his other son Julius Priscus, according to the studies of Alfred von Domaszewski, had made a brilliant career as an officer, holding positions that required belonging to the equestrian order (Cf. https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/RE:Iulius_340?fbclid=IwAR3BoXjk 6VBDHm8FwEjSJRZjeYbfoRpH1vCmWRxrJVnBFjOH7qaComZ8Ec)..

In the Epitome de Caesaribus, a work by an anonymous pagan Author inserted in the body of the work of Aurelius Victor, it is said disparagingly that Philip “humillimo loco ortus fuit” and that his father was a “nobilissimus latronum ductor”, a very noble leader of predators: a way to express one’s hatred against a Christian who had favored his religion (Cf. Epitome, 28, 4). Precisely on these definitions, however, we can better define the social condition of the emperor at his birth. In fact, the author wrote his work in the last decades of the fourth century, i.e. when the use of appellations used to address the most important characters in the courts and the Church developed its own protocol form which at that time was well known by insiders.

The fact that the emperor was defined as a “humillimo loco ortus” indicates a social condition that one would like to associate with the situation of the obscure provincial place where he was born, a place in the geographical sense, far, not far from the border on which the merchants and the soldiers are seen as “latres”: Bedouins dedicated to raids and robberies, rather than to surveillance and commerce. However, the pagan writer does not neglect to add that the “ductor” of these thieves, i.e. Philip’s father, is “nobilissimus”; using a word in a way that cannot be ironic, since readers would not fail to grasp the literal implications of him.

Since ancient times, the adjective was used for the same people to whom the title of “princeps” was reserved, in particular for the apparent heir of the emperor, starting at least with Geta in 198 (Cf. F.MITTHOFF , Annona militaris, 1993, s.l.).

Title then gradually extended and used for the highest environment of the state. Subsequently, and for centuries, “to re-establish the discipline of a militia principis once again in the hands of the king – argues Werner – the most highly placed had to settle for the title of comes since the highest titles, such as princeps or nobilissimus, were strictly reserved for the king and members of his dynasty” (Cf. WERNER, cit, p. 397).

Titles such as glorious and optimates, later widely used by the Franks, found their ecclesial and administrative equivalent in venerabilis for the abbot, apostoleus for the bishop and inluster for the count (Id., p.250). And it was precisely in this period, which still retained the use of ancient terminologies in the drafting of documents, that we can begin to notice a slight expansion of their attribution. If the clarissimi, excellentissimi, gloriosissimi, praestantissimi still exist, it must be kept in mind that “the -issimus began to be applied to the great vassals of those who were already princeps, demonstrating that they were about to become so in turn” (Id., p. 313).

Therefore, even if in its irony, the word used in the Epitome can underline the very high social origin of Philip; and, if the father was a prince of marauders or soldiers (it depends on the sympathy felt) who lived on the border with the desert, in any case it connects us to the family of royal lineage who lived precisely in Syria, namely that of a branch of the Ghassanids, transferred to one of its oldest movements, before the great migration due to the collapse of the dam.

Carmelo Currò Troiano, Italian Scholar, historian and journalist

The subject of the sovereignty of the Ghassanian Principality is very similar to that raised for numerous other states which arose in Europe and Asia and which developed or became extinct during the Renaissance period. There are numerous Italian examples. It will be enough to mention the Farnese states (Parma, Piacenza, or Castro), those of Romagna, the Savoy possessions (Piedmont), and the Medici ones (Florence and then almost all of Tuscany). At the beginning of the transformation of the imperial or pontifical dominions into ever more autonomous dominions, eventually independent in fact, there were long periods of interregnum, disorganization, of local weakness on the part of the sovereign states, namely the Papacy and the Empire, whose less attention to government affairs in peripheral possessions favored the development of a mercantile, military or administrative social class capable of occupying government spaces in major cities and therefore of transmitting this temporary power to their children or grandchildren. The rebellions in Germany, the schism that divided the Catholic Church, and the interference of the Kings of France in the events of the Pontificate, represented elements of exceptional importance that allowed local families to be able to assume ever greater power in their regions.

It is clear that when the strengthening of sovereign power succeeded in imposing itself again on the entities that were within the domains recognized to them, the end of these brief lordships was general (the Bentivoglio in Bologna, the Baglioni in Perugia, and many others). In fact, it should not be forgotten that our ancestors were essentially legalists, and therefore the return of a state or a feudal state to the ancient lord was considered normal, even after a very long time from the end of his dominion; while in other cases the impossibility of intervening without dangers and without economic expenditure or the diplomacy of balances advised sovereign governments not to intervene directly, safeguarding only rights that were becoming more and more random and solvent. This is the case of Florence where the Empire continued for a long time to maintain a garrison during the principality of Cosimo but where in reality the Prince of Casa Medici ruled with his own ministers, often in hostility or in suspicion of the government of Charles V.

In these cases, one should not speak of half-sovereign sovereign states, since often the definitions within which we want to tighten the facts do not have a real comparison with reality.

When, for example, the Medici House was able to maintain control over Tuscany (and this lasted until Italian unity), without heavy imperial interventions, especially when Spain withdrew its garrisons from Florence and Livorno, we can speak of sovereignty; before being able to exercise this power (that is, until the Lord of Florence was subjected to imperial approval for every act of his) there is no valid and recognizable entity of International Law. Even if the Emperor will subsequently proclaim his high sovereignty over Florence (as over other Italian states), the Medici state will remain a body of international law, being able to control its territory and oppose any imperial actions by force. In short, sovereignty on paper remains on paper and not in practice, as Spanish or Sicilian sovereignty on the island of Malta will no longer be valid, once the Knights of Malta manage to control their own state by themselves and even reject the terrible assaults of the Turkish fleet, becoming, in fact, an independent state and no longer a vassal of the Kingdom of Sicily (Cf. C. CURRO ‘, The royal abuse in Catanzaro against the Jerusalemite Knights: the eighteenth-century intrusiveness in https://www.facebook.com/1436947459854075/posts/1444624765753011/

It must therefore be said that only true and false states exist since it is possible to include in this second group all those public entities to which the state title has been attributed to a political fiction in the course of history but which in reality cannot be considered as such, as they are not they had effective control over their population and territory and survived only thanks to the support of the troops of an occupying Power. This is the case of the self-styled Italian social republic that the Germans established in 1943 in Northern Italy, of the Slovak state, of the occupation governments installed in the territories conquered during the Second World War (Cf. R. QUADRI, Public International Law, Naples 1973, p. 434).

The same applies to the states protected by the Turkish Empire such as Moldavia or Wallachia, whose prince was appointed by the Sublime Porte but who could not become independent, so much so that the Ottoman government was able to depose them, imprison them, exile them, demonstrating that have full control of the territory of these principalities and that the Prince was just a kind of governor.

In the case of the Ghassanid states, we can associate the events of other European states such as northern Albania and Montenegro. Or the events of other territories in the Middle East, such as the vast, almost depopulated areas of the Arabian Peninsula and Libya, only officially placed under the authority of the Turkish government, where the founders of the most rigid Muslim religious brotherhoods founded seats for their schools, which in practice became autonomous from the central power and then authentic sovereign states.

These territories, located in mountainous or desert areas, and difficult to reach or control, were only nominally under the dominion of the Turkish Empire. It was uselessly said that Turkish high sovereignty would persist over states such as Yemen or Egypt. In reality, if the Treaty of London of 1840 still recognized the Ottoman Empire as having a prevalence of intervention in foreign policy and in the military field, in fact, Egypt was rapidly becoming independent, since nominal sovereignty in practice is insignificant compared to sovereignty. effective (Cf. F.F. DE MARTENS, La question égyptienne et le droit international, Brussels 1882). As for Yemen, there was talk of suzerainetè (Oberhoeit) of Turkey during the nineteenth century; but it is clear that this was a political and diplomatic fiction, very interesting for states like Germany which at that time were actively working to increase their influence in the Empire, since the South Arabian state, in its almost perfect isolation (and perhaps thanks to this condition) it was actually an independent political entity (Cf. R. QUADRI, L’ile de Camaran, in Revue égiptienne de Droit international, 1957, spec. 22 et seq.).

Montenegro managed to remain independent in a large part of its Orthodox bishopric and in vain the Government of Constantinople tried to implant its power there, eventually giving up and accepting the fait accompli of a state that had been able to maintain itself independent with its new dynasty.

In the long and alternating period of decline of the Byzantine Empire, while numerous Christian populations of the Middle East preferred to submit to Muslim rule rather than remain under that of Byzantium, in their truly oppressive eyes, there was no lack of autonomy and therefore of sovereignty for local potentates. , in particular when the prestige of some of their authoritative exponents made it impossible for the Byzantines or Arabs to control the territory.

The Ghassanid States, located along the border of the ancient Roman Empire, had been considered independent entities for centuries, thanks to the need for Rome to engage in long and difficult disputes with the Persian Empire and eagerness to maintain a peaceful hinterland along which to pass their military communication routes. This is the reason that kept public opinion, writers, and historians, in the belief that the ancestors and founders of the successive Ghassanid political entities were authentic kings (Cf. https://royalblog.org/2018/07/16/the-legal-reasons-for-the-use-of-the-royal-titles-by-the-el-chemor-family/?fbclid=IwAR32sLaI4Ln2Os3ykA5EO15lFK4HTnnrhcJlvCbX9QTYyjnzhb_2fXYC1BI ). The facts can in fact be interpreted under the dynastic point of view, according to the widespread custom in the world, whereby if territorial sovereignty collapses, depending on the situation on the ability of the most powerful Empires to extend their power over them, it does not fail instead. the real dignity which is fixed on certain families. In fact, there is a general opinion that even in the absence of sovereign status, the royal status cannot be diminished, despite political and military changes.

Let’s take the case of the Bourbons: in France, this family was deposed by the revolution of 1789 which established the republic; and in 1802 the Bonaparte family ascended to the throne in his place. However, no one has ever thought that the Bourbons had lost their royal status forever, so much so that in 1815 they were called to the throne again; and today, despite the Bonapartes and the republic having succeeded them again, neither public opinion nor the law disputes their royal status, and their use of having the Head of the Dynasty confer noble titles on the members of the Family. Even the Bourbons-Spain, supplanted by the Savoy, by the republic, by a Francoist monarchy without a sovereign, have always been considered characters to be honored and mentioned with the title of Royal Highness, until the establishment of the constitutional monarchy which gave them back the precise privileges of the Crown. Same situation in Italy. Here the ancient ruling families (Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Bourbon-Parma, Austria Este, Habsburg Lorraine), despite being replaced and exiled by the Savoy with Italian unity, and therefore by the republic, continue to maintain their royal status, their components are called “Royal Highnesses” (Imperial and Royal for the Habsburgs), the Heads of the Dynasties confer titles of chivalry (today recognized by the ceremonial of the republic), and in some cases noble titles.

At this point, we can consider that while for the rulers of Moldavia or Wallachia it should not be considered that we are in the presence of royal houses, due to their impossibility of controlling the governed states, for Montenegro or for the Ghassanids cohabiting with the Roman Empires and Byzantine, we can instead think favorably of the existence in a more or less long time, of the sovereign characteristics fixed in their houses, since there was a period of perfect sovereignty over territory and subjects, during which families reigned without external interference, allowing the descendants of the Princes to be defined Royal or Imperial Highnesses (due to their relatives), and not to be compared to nobles of important feudal vassal states.

Therefore, the royal dignity has not been exhausted for the simple reason of territorial conquest and absorption. Indeed, the presence of vast fiefdoms, large places of political and military influence even within other states, constitutes the demonstration of a power that has been transformed, adapted, as if to protect the personal dignity handed down to people even if in times different.

Carmelo Curro’ Troiano was born in Salerno (Italy) where he lives. Graduated in Political Science, International Law, and Modern Literature. He is a historian and journalist (registered in the professional register). He is an expert in Genealogy and Heraldry; his family trees are among the most crowded and complete that have been made in Italy. As a cultural popularizer, he is engaged in television broadcasts and numerous conferences throughout the country. He collaborates with high-level newspapers and periodicals (including Focus, Il Mattino, Roma, Cronache del Mezzogiorno, Cuadernos de Ayala). He has written many books and scientific publications on behalf of public bodies, municipalities, and parishes.

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