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was a great "face to face" or "frontal"15 battle,16 and
Emperor Gordian was killed, and we annihilated
the Roman army, and the Romans proclaimed Philip emperor, and
Emperor Philip entered into negotiations and paid
to us 500,000 denars as ransom for the life of his friends, and
became our tributary, and we therefore called
Misiche Peroz-Sapur."17
The battle in Mesichise is never mentioned in our historical
sources, Greek, Latin, and Oriental, and the
location of Mesichise and Misiche is a matter of conjecture.
However the battle cannot be an invention. It may have
been contemporary with the murder of Gordian and may have been a
partial success of Shapuhr over one part of the
Roman army fighting perhaps in the North. This success was
grossly exaggerated by Shapuhr in his report. The
report on the death of Gordian is ambiguous. Shapuhr does not say
expressis verbis that Gordian was killed in the
battle. The report, it must be kept in mind, is written in the
traditional Oriental style and is at the same time a short
summary.18
There follows the report on the second campaign, ll. 10 ff. I may
here transcribe the Greek version as read by Sprengling:
There follows the list of the fortresses and cities,
3,5 in
number: Anath , Birtha Asporacou, Sura, Barbalissus, Hierapolis,
Beroea, Chalcis, Apamea, Rephanaeae, Zeugma,
Urima, Gindarus, Larmenaza,
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15. This is how I understand which I connect with
 not with  For similar use of  and 
see Liddell
and Scott, s.v.  and 
16.  in the inscription of Shapuhr always means "battle"
and not war.
17. Re-naming of captured cities is a common trait in the ancient
Orient, see for example the re-naming of Til-Barsip and other
cities by
Shalmaneser III, Luckenbill, op. cit. I, p. 218, no. 602.
18. How little we know of the conditions which reigned in Syria
during Gordian's expedition is shown by an inscription on a
grave-stele found near
Hama by J. Lassus (Inventaire Archéologique de la
Région au Nord-Est de Hama (Doc. d'Études Or.,
Institut de Damas IV),
1935, 1, P. 131, no. 74). The stele, according to Lassus, belongs
to an improvised graveyard perhaps of a group of men who fell by
hands of robbers
(members of a caravan?) or in a military engagement. The date,
Sel. 555, month Dystros (March, A.D. 244), shows that Syria was
not yet pacified
shortly before the death of Gordian and the peace-treaty between
Philip and Shapuhr (the exact date of these events is not known).
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The evidence supplied by this inscription, vague as it is, is
supported by the well known inscription (in Palmyrene) of the
same year (Sel. 555-A.D.
Oct. 243-Oct. 244) found at Palmyra (H. Ingholt, Syria, VII,
1926, p. 140. In this inscription a symposiarch of a religious
thiasos says that he
distributed for a whole year to the members of the thiasos old
wine "from his own house," "and wine in skins he has not brought
from the West." It
is probable that he usually distributed to the members Syrian
wine imported from the West, but in A.D. 243/244 was not able to
do so and replaced
the imported wine by old wine from his own cellar (or from his
own estates?). The reason was probably (see R. Dussaud, Rev.
Hist. Rel. XCV, 1927,
P. .203) either the destruction of vineyards in Syria by the
Persians during their raid of A.D. 242/3 or more probably the
interruption of
commercial relations between Palmyra and the wineproducing
regions of Syria, i.e., the disturbed status of Syria in this
year. On import of wine to
Palmyra see the famous "tarif" of Palmyra, ICR, III, 1086, III b,
c. 10 ; CIS, 11, 3, 1, 3913. It was Professor H. Ingholt who
reminded me of the thiasos
inscription and of the suggestion of Dussaud.
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