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and great sufferings for Syria. The attack of the "robber," probably supported by the Persians, was however apparently not crowned with success.

These events are not mentioned by our other sources. They cannot be identical with those recorded in a fragment of an unidentified chronicle inserted into the so-called Liber Chalipharum, a Syrian compilation of various chronicles of the VIIth century A.D. The entry in this fragment reads as follows: "563 (Sel. - A.D. 251/2) : Shabor, King of the Persians devastated Syria and Cappadocia. In the same year the barbarians crossed the river Danube and laid waste the islands."42 It must be noted that what the chronicler is talking about is a regular expedition of Shapuhr and not military troubles organized by a Roman, whoever he may be, and the date assigned to it is A.D. 251/2 and not 250/1. I suspect that what the chronicle is reporting is the first invasion of Syria by Shapuhr of A.D. 252/3 (see below) antedated by mistake by one year. I must emphasize that the date A.D. 251/2 does not fit the second event reported in the entry: the crossing of the Danube by the Goths and their devastation of the islands, that is to say of the Greek islands. The statement is confused, apparently an abbreviation of a more detailed statement. However it is evident that devastation of the islands presupposes a naval expedition by the Goths, and our best source about the Gothic invasions of Greece and Asia, Zosimus, knows of no such expedition of the Goths before A.D.252/3.43

Nor do I believe that the events in Cappadocia and Syria reported by the Orac. Sib. must be connected with the career and activity of the well known Mareades or Mariades (in the Greek version Cyriades) who, as some modern scholars believe, may be the of the Orac. Sib. Our tradition about Mareades is meager, contradictory, not dated, and full of legendary details. The best information on him is supplied by Malalas XII, 299. His "biography" in S.H.A. Tyr. trig. 2 is much confused. Short mention of him which agrees with the report of Malalas will be found in addition in Amm. Marc. XXIII, 5, 3 and in Petr. Patr. fr. 1.44

In Malalas' report Mareades appears as a buleutes of Antioch who embezzled public money, was expelled by the bulé, fled from Antioch to Shapuhr and betrayed to him his native city, during what appears in Malalas' report to be the first invasion of Syria by Shapuhr which led to the first capture of Antioch (see below, pp. 37 ff.). There is not a word in Malalas about any earlier activity of Mareades; and the troubles created by him in Cappadocia and Syria as early as the last year of Decius. The first capture of Antioch, as we shall see, is assigned by Malalas to the rule of Valerian. Confirmation of the report of the Orac. Sib. quoted above and of the identity of the with Mareades has been

42. J. P. N. Land, Anecdota Syriaca, 1, 1872, p. 18 (of the Syrian text), cf. p. 117 (Latin translation). The wording is almost identical with that of Syncellus, see below, p. 40. Cf. Nöldeke Tabari, p. 31, n. 3, and Ensslin, CAH, XII, p. 132.
43. Cf. A. Alföldi, CAH, XII, pp. 146 ff. Even if we interpret Zos. I, 26, 1 not as a "general, anticipatory description" of the Gothic raids but as a vague 		    report on an expedition shortly after the accession of Gallus it remains certain that this expedition was not a naval one.
44. The evidence on Mareades has been collected and studied by Stein, PWK, XIV, 17 44 ff., cf. CAH, XII, pp. 134, 138, 171, and A. T. Olmstead, op. cit. pp. 398 ff.

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