Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

78 3 Military confrontations
Fig. 6 Triumphal relief of ˇ Sāpūr I at Bīˇsāpūr
(Ghirshman, R. (1962) Iran. Parthians and Sassanians: fig. 197)
(Photo: John Russel)
According to the Res gestae divi Saporis the Roman emperor Gordian III
opened war on the Persians immediately after ˇ Sāpūr I succeeded to the
throne. 28 This statement contradicts the Western sources; these mention
several Sasanian invasions into Roman territory, which provoked a Roman
counter-attack. 29 In the spring of 243 the Roman army inflicted a crushing
defeat on the Persians at Rhesaina, between Nisibis and Carrhae, about
which we hear only in Ammianus Marcellinus. 30 In 244 another and this
time decisive battle was fought at Miˇsīk. According to the ˇ Sāpūr Inscription
( ˇ SKZ ) the Roman army was destroyed in this battle and the Roman
emperor killed. The Persian account clearly links Gordian’s death with the
confrontation at Miˇsīk and thereby differs completely from the Western
28 On the defensive character of ˇ Sāpūr’s first campaign against Rome see Sprengling 1940b: 360–71, esp.
363–4; on the Eastern campaign of this Roman emperor see Kettenhofen 1983: 151–71 and Bleckmann
1992: 57–76.
29 SHA Gord. 26.6; Synk. 681; Zon. xii.18.
30 Amm. xxiii.5.17; it is unlikely that ˇ Sāpūr I was prepared to hand over Mesopotamia to the Romans
without fighting.