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painted inscriptions found in the synagogue of the city which was buried under the embankment referred to above. They are written in Pehlevi and begin with a date: day of the month (Persian calendar) and year - 14 or 15. The only acceptable interpretation of these year dates is to my mind the regnal years of Shapuhr (from the fourth month of the year 14 to the first of the year 15) corresponding to the first ten months of A.D. 255. 61

There is no doubt therefore that the siege of Dura began not before A.D. 256. How long it lasted, we do not know. According to Professor F. E. Brown the siege was not a protracted affair. It began and ended within a few months, perhaps even a few weeks. He might be right, but there is no decisive proof for it.

In the years immediately before the siege Dura apparently lived a normal life. We know of course very little of the crucial years A.D. 253, 254, 255, and 256. But enough is known to suggest that the life of Dura in those years was comparatively quiet and undisturbed by disastrous events.

We are very well informed on the life of Dura's garrison, at least of one part of it, the cohors XX Palmyrenorum. Several documents which illustrate this life have been discovered in and around some rooms of the temple court of Artemis Azzanathkona, which was used as the office of the actuarius of the cohort. The latest of these documents (D.P. 3 verso) is a small fragment of a list of equites of the cohort with descriptions of their horses, the name and rank of the officer to whom the purchase and assignment of each horse had been referred for approval, the date, and finally the price.

The dates of the inspections of the horses are: A.D. 245 (recurring five times), 246 (one), 249 (two), and 251 (four). The latest date is associated with the names of Atilius Cosminus co(n)s(ularis), Ulpius Tertius dux, and Pomponius Letianus proc(urator) Augg. nn. ( ?). The formula used for the first two is the standard formula of the document: prob(atum) a (name) tunc co(n)s(ulari) or tunc duce. In the case of the procurator the tunc is omitted.

It is evident from the dates quoted above that the document was written after A.D. 251 and probably some time after it since the probatores of this year are styled "then consularis" and "then dux." But it cannot have been written much later. The horses which entered the military service in A.D. 245 had in 251 six years of service and could not have been used for many more years (in the Russian army horses of more than ten years of age were no longer used, except in emergency). On the other hand since the procurator is not styled as "then procurator" he may have been still in office in the year in which the document was written. It seems therefore probable that the list must be assigned to a date soon after A.D. 251, probably not later than 254 or 255. This shows

61. A preliminary study of the inscriptions by Professor A. Pagliaro will be found in Dura Rep. VI, pp. 393 ff., cf. the remarks of Prof. B. Geiger in J. Obermann, Inscribed Tiles from the Synagogue of Dura, Berytus, VII, 1942, p. 128, note 58. The inscriptions will be published in full in the final pub-

   

lication of the synagogue which is in preparation. Cf. Comte Du Mesnil du Buisson, Les Peintures de la Synagogue de Doura-Europos, 1939, p. 162, no. 23. On the correspondence between the regnal years of Sassanian kings and the Roman dates see above, p. 33.

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