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Asia Minor connected with the repeated raids of the Goths and Sarmatians. And he probably acted accordingly, carefully preparing a new expedition. Our information of what happened in Syria and Asia Minor between 253 and 259/60 is meager and hopelessly confused. However we may suppose that Shapuhr renewed his offensive, probably in A.D. 256 (see below). His advance was probably checked by Valerian. The title Parthicus, which appears on Valerian's coins in A.D. 257, was not a mere boast. It probably meant a partial victory of Valerian, perhaps somewhere on the Middle Euphrates.

Stopped for a while Shapuhr renewed his campaign of conquest in 259/60. This time he intended to advance by the northern road through Mesopotamia. Nisibis had been in his hands since A.D. 252, but he wanted to add to it Carrhae and Edessa. The two cities were besieged. Here he was met by Valerian. After a fierce battle Valerian was defeated and captured, probably by treachery. The roads to Syria lay open. Carrhae was taken but Edessa stood the siege and did not surrender. Then followed the second great invasion of Syria and Asia Minor, in which Antioch was taken again and the campaign of devastation was extended to Cilicia and Cappadocia. What happened afterwards does not concern us here. I may however point out the role of Odenath in the time of the retreat of Shapuhr. Odenath alone now held the field. Like Sampsiceramus, he was supported by the population of the large territory of his own Palmyra. But he was apparently not unpopular with the Roman army of Syria, which consisted chiefly of peasants recruited in Syria. For these soldiers Odenath was apparently as much of a national hero after his successes as he was in the eyes of the Palmyrene and the Syrian population in general. No wonder if it was in this light that he appears in the half historical accounts of Malalas and the Oracula Sibyllina XIII.

III. Numismatic Evidence

On the preceding pages I have given a reconstruction of events which happened in Syria in the fifties of the third century, based chiefly on a combination of the data contained in the inscription of Shapuhr and in some of our literary sources. In this reconstruction I have followed tentatively the chronology of Zosimus and Orac. Sib. XIII. In dealing with this period I have however not used the numismatic evidence and the material yielded by the excavations of Dura. I may now turn to these two basic sources, which apparently contradict my reconstruction in some important points.

The coins of Valerian minted in Syria have been collected, classified, dated, and used as historical evidence by various scholars, most recently by A. Alföldi in his two papers in Berytus cited above, note I. I am not a numismatist and cannot subject to adequate criticism the results of Alföldi, which led him to a reconstruction of events differing from that presented above. I may however test his results from the general historical point of view in the light of the evidence yielded by the inscription of Shapuhr.

In studying the ample material available to him Alföldi came to the conclusion that the mint of Antioch issued for Valerian two dated and several undated issues of coins from A.D. 254 to 258/9 without interruption (cf. below, p. 52, n. 67). In 258/9

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