Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

36 Enforced resettlement of prisoners 259
To give but a few, one is reminded of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews
or the 10,000 Roman prisoners who according to Plutarch were deported
to Iran by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae. 64 The Romans also
deported Persian prisoners of war. Cassius Dio, for example, tells us that
after the capture of the Parthian capital Seleucia-Ktēsiphōn the emperor
Septimius Severus (193–211) moved 100,000 Parthian captives to the West. 65
During the third century the Romans had hardly any opportunity to deport
Persian prisoners of war into the empire because in most instances they
found themselves exposed to Sasanian attacks and in a defensive position.
In the context of their famous defeat of Narsē(293–302), however, we hear
about Diocletian (284–305) deporting colonies of prisoners from Asia to
Thrace. 66 Galerius (305–11) must have taken these captive after his victory
over Narsē in Armenia, when the entire Sasanian camp including the royal
family fell into his hands (6). In an encomium for the Roman emperor
Constantius II (337–61) the orator Libanius mentions Roman attacks on
Sasanian territory during which important cities were captured and the
entire population deported to Thrace. 67 The author also states that the
deportations served to commemorate Rome’s victory and gave the emperor
an opportunity to display his generosity and compassion. 68 These words
suggest a difference between Roman and Persian deportations. S. Lieu
argues that ‘unlike the Sassanians, the Romans had no coherent plan of
settlement for these prisoners and did not seem to have any economic aim
in their deportation beyond using them as cheap farm-labourers. The main
objective of the deportation was clearly propagandistic.’ 69 While this may
be true, the deportation of Persians certainly continued into the late phases
of Roman–Sasanian relations. Several sources attest to the deportation of
the Persian population of Arzanene to Cyprus in the year 578. 70
With regard to the East, the weak phase after the death of ˇ Sāpūr I
meant that the flow of Roman prisoners to the Persian Empire ceased.
Not before the reign of the powerful Persian king ˇ Sāpūr II (309–79) and
his many successes against Rome did deportations become more frequent
again. 71 The economic motives of the Sasanian kings that could be seen
already with regard to the deportations of ˇ Sāpūr I are confirmed by the
so called Martyrology of Pusai, the Syriac testimony of a Christian martyr
64 Plut. Crass. 31.8. 65 Cass. Dio lxxv.9.4. 66 Pan. Lat. viii. (v).21.1.
67 Lib. Or. 59.83–4. 68 Ibid. 59.85. 69 Lieu 1986: 487.
70 Ioh. Eph. HE vi.15 provides us with the most detailed account; but cf. also Theoph. Simoc. iii.15.13–
15, who mentions 100,000 prisoners of war.
71 Amm. xx.6.7; on the deportation of Roman prisoners by ˇ Sāpūr II see Lieu 1986: 495–9.