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of the siege as reconstructed from. archaeological evidence. It is evident that the construction of the embankment along the defensive wall of Dura was contemporaneous with the beginning of the siege. It was a vital measure of protection and one which was carried out in haste, apparently as soon as the siege began. Now the construction of the embankment did not begin before A.D. 256 (see above). It is therefore certain that the siege of Dura began not before A.D. 256. The suggestion of a protracted siege of Dura as a continuation of the campaign of Shapuhr of A.D. 253 must be therefore eliminated as contradicting several ascertained facts about the character of the campaign in general and the history of Dura in the years under discussion, and of the siege of Dura in A.D. 256. I may add in passing that a protracted siege is also irreconcilable with the activity of Odenath after the end of Shapuhr's raid, of which I will speak presently.68

More probable appears to me another explanation of the discrepancy between the evidence of our literary sources combined with the data of the Shapuhr inscription and that of Dura. One may suppose that Dura was captured by Shapuhr twice, first in A.D. 253 and a second time in A.D. 256. I have mentioned above (p. 26) that Dura with three other cities of the Euphrates is named at the end of Shapuhr's list of captured cities in a kind of Appendix and I suggested that its capture may have happened either during the march back of Shapuhr's army, or, more probably, earlier, when Shapuhr's rearguard or an auxiliary corps of his army marched up the Euphrates after the battle of Barbalissus. There is no need to assume that the capture of Germanicia, Bathna, Circesium and Dura required much time and protracted sieges. After Barbalissus and the invasion of Syria these fortresses were in a difficult situation, almost isolated as it were. Their garrisons may have been withdrawn to Mesopotamia. I remind the reader that in his campaign of A.D. 253 Shapuhr never carried out any military operations on the left bank of the Euphrates. The left bank with its fortresses and garrisons was apparently in the hands of the Romans before and after Barbalissus and the withdrawal of garrisons from the aforesaid fortresses of the right bank of the Euphrates to Mesopotamia after Barbalissus would therefore not be a difficult military operation. After this withdrawal of the garrisons the capture of the cities was practically a surrender to Persians of the civil population. In fact it was a repetition of what happened to Dura during the expedition of Trajan. The city was taken by Trajan without any siege. No traces of

256 would certainly be reflected in one way or another in the coinage of the city since it meant a cessation of the operations of the mint for at least one year if not more and would make us suppose that all the three undated emissions between 253-254 and the beginning of 257 were made practically in one year, that is to say, since Dura (and consequently Antioch) was besieged and probably captured in the spring and summer of A.D. 256, in A.D. 255. It is more safe to attribute them to A.D. 254, 255, and 256 or perhaps to A.D. 255 and 256.

68. A variant of the hypothesis of a protracted siege may be as follows. Dura, in A.D. 253 was not besieged by the Persians but the Persians may have

   

blockaded it and cut it off from Syria, though not able to cut it off from Mesopotamia, that is to say not able to stop the relations between Mesopotamia and Dura effected by using the Khabur and the Euphrates as routes of communication between the two places. This would account for the circulation of coins in Dura. The supply of coins came to Dura from Mesopotamia. Then after two or three years of such a blockade the real siege began and Dura fell. I mention this interpretation of evidence as one which may be suggested by fellow students. To my mind such a hypothesis contradicts many well known and ascertained facts, the same which make it impossible to accept the hypothesis of a protracted siege.

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