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Trajan's Parthian War and the Fourth-Century Perspective*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

C. S. Lightfoot
C. S. Lightfoot
Affiliation:
British Institute of Archaeology, Ankara
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Extract

No contemporary account of Trajan's Parthian War survives, nor were any monuments set up to commemorate his exploits in the East in the same way that Trajan's Column in Rome and the trophy at Tropaeum Traiani (Adamclisi) do his Dacian Wars. We rely almost entirely on the excerpts of Dio Cassius' History preserved by Xiphilinus, together with a few fragments of Arrian's Parthica, in order to reconstruct the causes, objectives and strategy of the war. Because of the scant nature of the sources, all three aspects remain the subject of much scholarly discussion and dispute. Here, however, an attempt is made to address the problems raised by Trajan's eastern campaigns from a different perspective. References in fourth-century sources shed light not only on the purpose and execution of the war itself, but also on the way Trajan was perceived in late antiquity as a valuable paradigm for contemporary events and figures.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 80 , November 1990 , pp. 115 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © C. S. Lightfoot 1990. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 See Longden, R. P., ‘Notes on the Parthian campaigns of Trajan’, JRS xxi (1931), 1–15;Google ScholarGuey, J., Essai sur la guerre parthique de Trajan (114–117) (1937)Google Scholar; and Lepper, F. A., Trajan's Parthian War (1948)Google Scholar.

2 Malalas supplies a precise date—7 January (Chron. 11. 272). For discussion of Malalas' dates, see M. I. Henderson, Review of Lepper, F. A., ‘Trajan's Parthian War’, JRS xxxix (1949), 122–4.Google Scholar

3 Julian, it is true, set out from Antioch on his ill- fated Persian campaign on 5 March a.d. 363, but he was heading south towards warmer, drier climes, not north across the Taurus mountains.

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6 So Mitford, op. cit. (n. 4), 1196 n. 65. Those members of the Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire Colloquium, held in Ankara in September 1988, who participated in the subsequent tour could, I am sure, vouch for the mountainous nature of the terrain. For this route, see French, D. H., ‘New research on the Euphrates frontier: Supplementary notes 1 and 2’, in Mitchell, S. (Ed.), Armies and frontiers in Roman and Byzantine Anatolia (1983), 84–6Google Scholar, fig. 7. 1.

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9 The only comparable evidence on which I have been able to draw is that for Julian's expedition. He covered the journey from Antioch to Hierapolis, a distance of some 220 km, in five days. This indicates to me that he was riding poste-haste along good roads to meet the army, which had already mustered at Hierapolis, rather than that he was marching ‘with a force of some eighty to ninety thousand men’ (Bowersock, G. W., Julian the Apostate (1978), 108Google Scholar). From Hierapolis Julian's progress slowed considerably and he only reached Callinicum (after a detour to Carrhae) on 27 March. This makes a round trip of about 225 km in 16 days, or 14 km per day. It is from this last figure that I have derived my rough estimate of 15 km or just over 9 miles per day for Trajan's rate of march. Since the army had to negotiate formidable mountain ranges in order to reach Satala, I have deliberately made this slower than Casson's private traveller, whom he expected to do about 15 to 20 miles a day on foot ‘in normal terrain, with no toilsome slopes to negotiate’ (Casson, L., Travel in the ancient world (1974), 189Google Scholar).

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11 Dep. Antioch 1 April Arr. Satala 21 May c. 760 km 51 days DeP- Satala 23 May Arr. Elegeia 3 June. 180 km—12 days Dep. Armenia (?) 31 July Arr. Nisibis 15 Septi c. 690 km–46 days

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22 This episode has for long struck me as strange, since I find it impossible to believe that the Jaghjagha (Çaçak Dere) was navigable in antiquity. The idea that a fleet was constructed at Nisibis in order for it to sail down to the Euphrates is quite fanciful.

23 So Lepper, op. cit. (n. 1), 210.

24 Dio LXVIII. 28. 1; Amm. Marc. xiv. 6. 1; see Longden, op. cit. (n. 1), 14 and below (n. 41).

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43 BMCRE vol.3 (1966), 221–2, nos. 1033–40.

44 Maricq, op. cit. (n. 33), 257.

45 Compare … DAC[IA] CAP[TA] with DACIA AUGUST. PROVINCIA S.C. (BMCRE, op. cit. (n. 43), 82–4, nos. 381–93 and 204, nos. 960–3).

46 L. Catilius Severus, consul in a.d. 110 and 120 (ILS 1041). Another inscription (ILS 1338), which mentions the post of procurator Augusti Armeniae Maioris, is attributed to T. Haterius Nepos and dated to the same period. For other evidence for the Roman establishment in Armenia, see Chaumont, op. cit. (n. 35), 138–9; J. Crow, ‘A review of the physical remains of the frontier of Cappadocia’, in Freeman and Kennedy, op. cit. (n. 32), 80–1, with CIL III. 13627a.

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57 See A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius. A biography (rev. ed., 1987), 128–9, 140.