The city is attested as a bishopric of the Syriac Church for the first time c. 410, as a suffragan of Nisibis. In the 5th and 6th centuries it was a bastion of the Sasanians in their recurrent wars with the Byzantine Empire. Its strategic importance derived from its location on the route from Amida in Upper Mesopotamia via Lake Van to the Armenian Highlands and the Armenian capitals of Artaxata and Dvin. In 578, according to Theophylact Simocatta, 10,000 people from the district were forcibly resettled by the Byzantines to Cyprus.