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(above, p. 27) that Carrhae and Edessa were in the hands of the Romans before the battle of Edessa. It is very improbable that they were reconquered by Valerian between A.D. 252 and 260. The same must be assumed for Rhesaena. After the battle of Edessa Carrhae, but not Edessa and probably not Rhesaena, fell. We know that Nisibis and Carrhae, but not Edessa and Rhesaena, were re-captured by Odenath soon after the battle of Edessa (SHA, Gall. 10 and 12; Tyr. tr. 15 (Nisibis alone); Zos I, 39).

Shapuhr's operations in A.D. 250-252 were not a full success as we have seen. This is the reason why they are not mentioned in the Res Gestae. However the situation of the Roman Empire after these events was such as to make a renewed attack promising and attractive. Civil war raged in Italy (Trebonianus, Aemilianus, Valerian), the frontiers of the Roman Empire were in great danger, the terrible plague which broke out under Trebonianus was still raging. Nor was the situation better after the accession of Valerian and during the years of his short rule. Fighting on the Rhine and the Danube frontiers never stopped, the Goths and the Borani (the last perhaps one of the powerful Sarmatian tribes) repeatedly invaded the Roman Empire from South Russia and pillaged Asia Minor.47 In this atmosphere of distress Shapuhr had a fair chance to carry out his plans as described above. And in fact he did so. It is to this time that we must assign in all probability the second expedition of his inscription, which preceded the well known third campaign.

This second expedition which led to a temporary conquest of Syria and to a wholesale pillage of a part of it and of some cities of Cappadocia is seemingly not unknown to some of our literary sources, and has not escaped the attention of some of the modern historians of the Roman Empire. Mention of it may be detected, I think, in the Oracula Sibyllina, in Zosimus, in Malalas, in Syncellus as well as in the SHA, in Ammianus Marcellinus, and in Petrus Patricius, though, it must be recognized, the evidence in most of the cases is vague and somewhat obscure and the dates assigned to the event's (if any) differ. The literary tradition, though many times collected and discussed by modern scholars, must therefore be studied again in the light of the new data supplied by the inscription of Shapuhr.48

The most peculiar and in part the most detailed report on the events under review will be found in the Oracula Sibyllina XIII, 107 ff . In all probability the prophecies of the XIIlth book were written by a contemporary and a witness of the events which took place in Syria and perhaps in Egypt. If that is so - and nobody so far as I know has proved the unanimous opinion of students of the Oracula Sibyllina XIII to be wrong - that narrative, certainly arranged in chronological order, is the only contemporary historical evidence on the sequence of the events which took place in Syria at the time under review, and must therefore be taken seriously into consideration. Let me first summarize the contents.

47. On these last incursions see A. Alföldi, CAH, XII, pp. 138 ff. and 721 ff. The sequence of these incursions is certain, while the exact dates of them are controversial.     48. The modern works which deal with these events are cited above in n. 1.

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