Osgiliath

Osgiliath is a Sindarin name, and its parts can be traced through the elements Tolkien listed for the Elvish tongues. The first element is os(t), meaning a fortress or stronghold, the same word found in the names of other fortified places. The second is giliath, a collective form built on gil, star, and so denoting a whole host of stars rather than a single one. The same element appears in Dagor-nuin-Giliath, the Battle-under-Stars of the First Age. Read together, the name means something like the citadel of the starry host, and English renderings such as Citadel of the Stars or Fortress of the Stars shorten this without changing the sense.1

The name belongs to the founding generation of the Númenórean realm in exile. Isildur and Anárion gave Elvish names to the cities they raised, and Osgiliath stood between two sister foundations: Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, held by Isildur, and Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, held by Anárion. The three names form a coherent set, with moon, sun and stars each assigned to one city. The star-city was the royal seat of the pair, and the Dome of Stars within it carried the same imagery into the name of its most famous building. The sources do not say why the founders chose the stars in particular, and any further motive would be conjecture.2

In The Lord of the Rings the name appears without a gloss, used by Faramir, Denethor and the chronicles alike as a plain proper name, including for the ruined crossing that Gondor still guarded at the end of the Third Age. Its continued use by the Men of Gondor fits the wider pattern in which the Dúnedain of the South kept Elvish forms for their places even when their daily speech had changed. Tolkien's rules for stress place the accent on the syllable gil, since the following short vowel does not draw it forward.3

Osgiliath lay on the Anduin in the heart of old Gondor, at the point where the Great River runs south between the Mountains of Shadow and the White Mountains. It stood between two towers. To the east, on a shoulder of the Ephel Dúath, rose Minas Ithil, later Minas Morgul. To the west, beneath Mount Mindolluin, stood Minas Anor, later Minas Tirith. The river cut the city into an eastern half on the Ithilien shore and a western half facing the Pelennor. Its position made Osgiliath a crossing as well as a capital. A road ran eastward from the city to the Cross-roads in Ithilien and on up the valley toward the Morgul tower, so the way into the mountains that bordered Mordor began at its bridge.1

In its prime the city was built across the water rather than simply beside it. The later account of the founding describes a bridge spanning the Anduin, with towers and stone houses standing upon it. The two banks were therefore joined into a single urban body instead of forming twin settlements. The Dome of Stars, the chief building of the royal seat, belonged to this city of the river. It is the setting against which the Kin-strife and the burning of the Dome are told.2

By the War of the Ring nothing of this remained but ruins on both shores and the memory of a crossing. West of the river, the road from Minas Tirith ran across the Pelennor to the outer wall and on to the ruined city. Gondor kept a garrison at the fords, since whoever held Osgiliath controlled the nearest passage of the Anduin to the White City. Boromir reported to the Council of Elrond that the last bridge had been lost in the fighting of that year. During the siege the defence of the western ruins and the causeway forts marked the outermost line of Gondor's resistance east of the Pelennor.3

Osgiliath came into being with the Realms in Exile, which the Tale of Years places in the Second Age 3320, after Elendil and his sons escaped the Downfall of Númenor. Isildur and Anárion ruled Gondor jointly from the city, and each also held one of the flanking towers. The first test came in 3429, when Sauron struck from Mordor, took Minas Ithil and forced Isildur to flee north to his father. Anárion held Minas Anor and Osgiliath against the assault, so the city survived the opening of the war. The Last Alliance followed, and Osgiliath stayed in Men's hands through the long struggle that ended with Sauron's overthrow.1

In the early Third Age Osgiliath remained the seat of the South-kingdom and the centre of its government. Its standing slowly shifted toward the western tower. King Ostoher rebuilt Minas Anor, and from his time the kings spent the summer there rather than in the capital on the river. The change did not yet dethrone Osgiliath, but it set a precedent. Later kings would follow it when the older city could no longer serve.2

The first great calamity was internal. When Eldacar succeeded to the crown in 1432, rebels who objected to his mixed descent rose against him, and the Kin-strife broke out. Eldacar was besieged in Osgiliath and held it for a long time, until hunger and the greater numbers of the rebels under Castamir drove him out. In 1437 the city was taken and burned. The Dome of Stars was destroyed in the fire, and the palantír kept there was lost in the waters of the Anduin. Eldacar fled into exile in the north, while Castamir ruled as usurper until Eldacar returned in 1447 and defeated him. The burned capital never regained its former state.3

Two centuries later the Great Plague of 1636 did what civil war had begun. The sickness killed King Telemnar and all his children, and the White Tree in Minas Anor died, while Osgiliath suffered heavily among its people. Telemnar's successor Tarondor moved the King's House permanently to Minas Anor in 1640 and planted a seedling of the Tree there. From that point Osgiliath was no longer the royal seat. It became steadily more deserted and began to decay. When Minas Ithil fell to the Nazgûl in 2002 and became Minas Morgul, the half-empty city was left facing a hostile fortress only a short way to the east.4

The final destruction came in 2475, when Uruks out of Mordor overran Ithilien and seized Osgiliath. Boromir, son of the Steward Denethor I, defeated them and won back Ithilien. The city itself could not be saved. It was ruined beyond repair, and its great stone bridge was broken. After this no one lived among its ruins. For the remainder of the age Osgiliath counted only as a military position, a crossing that Gondor held because losing it would open the river to the enemy.5

During the War of the Ring the ruins were fought over repeatedly. The Tale of Years dates Sauron's assault on Osgiliath to 20 June 3018, the attack in which Gondor lost its last crossing, as Boromir later told the Council of Elrond. The following March Denethor sent Faramir back to strengthen the defence of the western ruins. When the host of Minas Morgul came across the river in force, Faramir could not hold the line and withdrew toward the Pelennor, and his retreat left the approach to Minas Tirith open. After the Battle of the Pelennor Fields the tide turned. The army of the West marched east through Osgiliath and crossed the Anduin there on its way to the Black Gate.6

The people of Osgiliath were Dúnedain of the Faithful who had come from Númenor with Elendil and his sons, together with the Men of the lands they now ruled. The two brothers shared the crown of the South-kingdom from the city on the river. After the Last Alliance, Isildur went north and gave the governance of Gondor to his nephew Meneldil, son of Anárion. From then on Osgiliath was the seat of Anárion's line, and the kings of Gondor ruled from it for most of the first half of the Third Age. The appendices note that over time the blood of the Dúnedain mingled with that of other Men. The capital was the place where the nobility guarded their Númenórean descent most closely. This concern became open conflict when King Valacar married Vidumavi, a princess of the Northmen of Rhovanion, and their son's claim was contested by those who held to the old lineage.1

Osgiliath's relation to its neighbours was shaped by the two towers that flanked it. Minas Ithil guarded the city against Mordor and Minas Anor guarded it from the west, so the capital stood behind a shield on each side. Once the royal household moved west, Osgiliath passed from capital to dependency, and the kings, and after them the Ruling Stewards, governed it from Minas Tirith. Its neighbourhood turned hostile when the Morgul tower rose to the east. The pressure from Mordor eventually emptied Ithilien as well: its last settled inhabitants left the country in the year 2901, and from then on Osgiliath had no civil population on either side of the river.2

In the book the hobbits never reach Osgiliath: they part from Faramir at his hidden refuge and continue south toward the Cross-roads.

In the last years of the age the only people at Osgiliath were soldiers, and it was governed as part of Gondor's military command under the Steward Denethor II. Faramir, as captain of the Rangers of Ithilien, described the shores near the ruined city as a line his men watched constantly, since it was the one river-crossing still in Gondor's hands. The garrison at the fords was kept up by drawing men from other posts, so that whether the crossing could be held depended on how many soldiers the city at Mindolluin could spare.3

In The Lord of the Rings Osgiliath is almost never seen directly. It enters the narrative as reported news, carried far from the river to the council at Rivendell. There Boromir tells the assembled company how the enemy's assault drove Gondor from the eastern shore, and how a dark power that his men could not withstand broke their courage at the crossing. He also places his brother's prophetic dream on the night before that sudden attack, so the dream that sends Boromir north and the fighting at the ruined city are presented as one moment. The first mention of Osgiliath in the tale is therefore a report of defeat, and it gives the reader the book's first view of how hard-pressed Gondor is.1

In the later books the ruins lie just beyond the edge of what the viewpoint characters see. Frodo and Sam pass through Ithilien without reaching the river and learn about the watch on its shores only from Faramir. In Minas Tirith, Pippin follows events at Osgiliath from the walls and hears them as rumour, as when Faramir's company comes back across the Pelennor pursued by the Nazgûl and Gandalf rides out to cover their retreat. Soon afterwards Denethor sends Faramir back to the river after a bitter exchange between father and son. Through this order the ruined city becomes part of the family conflict in the Steward's house.2

Osgiliath also stands in the story for Gondor's decline. Faramir describes his people as diminished heirs who have let their inheritance fall into ruin, and the broken capital on the Anduin is the clearest physical sign of that loss. The fighting over the ruins shows how little room Gondor has left, since the realm now defends as a frontier the place that was once its centre.3

Of the older adaptations, none gives Osgiliath a significant place. Ralph Bakshi's film ends before the story reaches Gondor, and the ruined city matters in the later dramatisations mainly as a place that is spoken of. Peter Jackson's trilogy is the exception, because it turns the ruins into a setting where major events happen. The greatest departure comes in the second film, The Two Towers. There Faramir, played by David Wenham, does not release Frodo and Sam in Ithilien. He takes them and Gollum west to the embattled city on the river, and only there does he decide to let them go. In the book the hobbits never reach Osgiliath: they part from Faramir at his hidden refuge and continue south toward the Cross-roads. The extended edition of the same film adds a scene set before the story begins, in which Boromir, played by Sean Bean, retakes the city from the enemy and his brother fights beside him. The novel gives no such episode, and there the brothers' past appears only in what the characters recall.1

The third film, The Return of the King, keeps the outline of the book's defence of the river. The garrison is forced out of the ruins, and Faramir's company falls back toward the city pursued by the Nazgûl. The film changes what follows. Denethor, played by John Noble, orders his son to win back Osgiliath, and Faramir leads a mounted charge across open ground at the ruins, from which he is carried back gravely wounded. In the book Denethor sends Faramir only to strengthen the defence of the river and the outer wall, and Faramir is struck down while covering the retreat, not in an attack on the lost city. These changes give Osgiliath a larger role on screen than it has in the novel. They also shift the conflict between father and sons onto the ruined city, which in the book remains largely in the background.2