doi: 10.2143/AWE.9.0.2056306 AWE 9 (2010) 155-179 THE SOURCES FOR ROME’S WARS WITH SHAPUR I: EUROCENTRIC AND EASTERN PERSPECTIVES PETER M. EDWELL Abstract Fergus Millar’s The Roman Near East: 31 BC–AD 337 published in 1993 is one of the lead- ing contributions to the study of the Roman Near East. His analysis of Greek and Latin literary and narrative texts and especially inscriptions and papyri has been important in developing a better understanding of culture in the Roman Near East. It also illuminates the political history of Rome’s presence in the Near East during this period. The contribu- tions of classicists to the study of the Roman Near East have come under increasing criti- cism in more recent times for being too ‘Eurocentric’. In reaction to this, calls have been made by a number of scholars for a greater voice to be given to the ‘Eastern’ sources and also to the material evidence. There is perhaps some merit in these claims but there are dif- ficulties with privileging Eastern sources and deficiencies in attempts to do so. The period of Shapur I’s wars with Rome is an appropriate and important period of the history of the Roman Near East by which to investigate the nature of the sources, the important contri- butions by classicists and the inherent problems in attempting to privilege an Eastern per- spective. This paper considers the various categories of evidence available for this period and argues that classicists should continue to play a significant role in analysing the Roman Near East. It is commonly acknowledged that studying the Roman world in the 3rd century is a difficult prospect due to the limited nature of the surviving written sources. After Dio’s history concludes in fragments in AD 229, and Herodian’s soon after, there is no surviving ancient narrative apart from relatively brief summaries, chronicles and epitomes. The sources that do survive are not only limited but problematic, particularly the Historia Augusta, which has seen most classicists, per- haps understandably, stay away from the 3rd century, focusing instead on periods of Roman history seen as more source rich in literary terms. Fergus Millar has not been one of them. His important contribution to the study of the Roman Near East, for example, includes detailed analysis of the 3rd century after the conclu- sion of Dio and Herodian, and successfully broadens the traditional literary source base to include inscriptions and papyri together with some consideration of the archaeology. In recent decades, however, the foray of those labelled classicists such as Millar into the study of the Roman Near East has been criticised because of its perceived 993510_AWE9_2010_09.indd3510_AWE9_2010_09.indd 115555 22/12/10/12/10 113:253:25 156 P.M. EDWELL Eurocentrism. Millar himself acknowledges that ‘the book represents an expedition by a Classical ancient historian into Near Eastern territory’ and that ‘the perspec- tive of (his) book cannot fail to be a Western one…’1 The criticism of the approach of classicists as Eurocentric is linked closely to the focus on European languages, i.e. Greek and Latin, as the main sources for such studies. Warwick Ball summa- rises the problem as he sees it as follows: Works that deal with the Roman Near East are usually written by Classicists. These are necessarily Eurocentric…One recent major work on the Roman Near East (i.e. Millar 1993), for example, constantly labours the lack of narrative ‘character’ – hence civiliza- tion – compared to Graeco-Roman superiority. In a recent admirable collection of source material for the Roman eastern frontier, a reservation is expressed about a major Persian source as ‘solely expressing the Persian point of view’, a reservation not expressed by the overwhelming amount of Greek and Latin sources (which of course, express the Roman view). Elsewhere in the same work, the western campaigns of Shapur I are dis- missed as plundering raids and ‘razzias’, an archaic and derogatory term with overtones of raids by mere semi-civilized nomads. No Classicist would ever dismiss, for example, Trajan’s campaigns into Mesopotamia as ‘razzias’.2 In a recently revised and expanded version in English of an earlier work, Beate Dignas and Engelbert Winter state one of their purposes in writing Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity as follows: ‘In reaction to the conventional and still preva- lent Eurocentric perspective of many scholarly works, we emphasise the Eastern textual and visual testimonies.’3 There is a growing call, therefore, for the use of sources other than ones identified as Eurocentric in analysing the history of Rome’s presence in the Near East, including its relations with the Sasanians as a way of correcting this perceived Eurocentrism and challenging the value judgments which are identified as coming with it. Further to the criticisms of studies of the Roman Near East by classicists is their limited and somewhat ignorant use of sources which are not focused on language, in particular archaeology and numismatics. The two criticisms have been linked by the suggestion that the archaeology is able to tell a more accurate story, one which is not as Eurocentric: Material remains have all too often been relegated to mere illustrative material by histo- rians. But they reflect a far more accurate picture of a society as a whole – and can often considerably alter the historical picture provided by the more conventional sources. The 1 Millar 1993, xvi, 3. 2 Ball 2000, 2–3. 3 Dignas and Winter 2007, xi. 993510_AWE9_2010_09.indd3510_AWE9_2010_09.indd 115656 22/12/10/12/10 113:253:25 THE SOURCES FOR ROME’S WARS WITH SHAPUR I 157 need, first, for an eastern viewpoint and second, to use the material remains as a source, therefore, has never been greater…Only in this way can the main objective be achieved: to examine Rome’s involvement in the East and its ultimate transformation.4 Shapur I’s wars with Rome (AD 243–261) are clearly an appropriate means by which to evaluate the above claims and to suggest a more fruitful overall approach. First of all, the conflict with Shapur is undoubtedly a period of significant moment in the whole of Roman history. The defeat of a number of large armies, the capture of dozens of cities in important Roman provinces and the only capture of a living emperor are highlights of the unprecedented devastation Rome suffered in these wars. Secondly, the Greek and Latin narrative sources either contemporary or later are very limited and problematic and finally, a range of other categories of sources such as papyri and archaeology are available in some abundance. One of the most important sources for these events is a Persian source, the SKZ/RGDS inscription,5 often championed as an ‘Eastern’ source and not Eurocentric. The Limitations of the Greek and Latin Narrative Sources Any analysis of Shapur I’s wars with Rome using the Greek and Latin narrative and literary sources will be focused on a Roman perspective, especially a Roman impe- rial one. The only two contemporary extant sources which provide narrative detail for the aftermath of Gordian III’s campaign against Shapur I in Persia (AD 242– 244) and the overwhelming invasions of the Roman eastern provinces by Shapur in the AD 250s, are the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle and the SKZ inscription. Neither of these are typical narrative sources and the latter represents a Persian rather than a Roman perspective. The only contemporary text which was focused on Roman imperial history and of which we know anything is Dexippus’ History but it sur- vives in fragments which provide little detail on this conflict. Later Roman texts referring to these events are either fragmentary themselves or summaries of the events providing only limited detail. The one exception on some aspects of the wars with Shapur is the collection of biographies known as the Historia Augusta but the almost universal scepticism reserved for this as a source for anything historical makes it a marginal source at best. All of this is potentially lamentable to the mod- ern historian of the Roman empire in the east in the 3rd century, especially for those relying on Greek and Latin narrative sources who have been described as ‘bedevilled by the lack of a coherent and reliable ancient authority’.6 4 Ball 2000, 5. 5 Shapur’s inscription on the Ka’ba-i Zardust (SKZ) or Res Gestae Divi Saporis (RGDS) 6 Dodgeon and Lieu 1994, 4. 993510_AWE9_2010_09.indd3510_AWE9_2010_09.indd 115757 22/12/10/12/10 113:253:25 158 P.M. EDWELL Dexippus Dexippus is the only lost 3rd-century source of which anything significant is known. David Potter provides a useful summary of what has survived of his work and its importance for the conflict between Rome and Persia.7 Millar contextualises Dexippus in his historiographical, social and political worlds, mostly on the basis of what we know of him from inscriptions.8 Dexippus is thought to have written a number of works but the one which probably provided most coverage of events on Rome’s eastern frontier was the History, beginning with the Athenian archons and ending with the reign of Claudius Gothicus (AD 268–270) (Evagrius HE 5. 24). Despite only having fragments of Dexippus’ History the importance of his writings to 3rd-century historiography has been strongly emphasised in modern scholarship. In analysing the sources of the Historia Augusta, for example, some scholars effec- tively consign to the realm of fiction anything about the emperors of the 3rd cen- tury AD which was not directly attributable to Dexippus.9 The comparison of Dexippus with the Historia Augusta has contributed to the over-emphasis on Dexippus as a reliable source although in a recent study, Potter judges Dexippus to have been a poor historian who did not have access to good information and who was uncritical in his evaluation of that evidence.10 In either case, it is difficult to be conclusive due to the fragmentary nature of what survives and it could be argued that the prominent historiographical position afforded Dex- ippus is the result of what we know of him fitting the social and political profile of a Tacitus or a Dio.