Battle of Edessa
Mesiche - Edessa - Satala - Maranga - Dara - Melitene - Solachon - Konstantin Opel - Nineveh
The Battle of Edessa took place between the armies of 260 of the Roman Empire under the command of Emperor Valerian and the Persian Great King Shapur I. Sassanidenreichs below instead. The Romans were trounced, while the Persians suffered only slight losses.
Prior to the battle Shapur was repeatedly invaded deep into Roman territory, where Antioch had been captured and plundered on the Orontes in Syria 253 or 256. To stop the Persian attacks and to repay, Valerian went personally with a reportedly 70,000 strong army, including the Praetorian Guard against Shapur into the field. After initial successes - the Romans succeeded initially to recapture the Syrian provinces - it came in the wide plain between Carrhae and Edessa in the early summer of 260 to the slaughter.
The Roman army suffered while a catastrophic defeat at the hands mainly composed of heavy cavalry Persian army, where Emperor Valerian came during or after the battle in captivity - a unique and for the Romans extremely humiliating event that Shapur in his deeds of ( so-called res gestae divi Saporis in Greek, middle Persian and Parthian ) in Naqsch -e Rostam and on other rock reliefs (like Bishapur ) stated:
The Emperor and the surviving Romans, including the praetorian prefect Successianus were abducted by Shapur in the Sassanid Empire. According to Lactantius, the Great King humbled his defeated rivals by using him as a human footstool while climbing of his horse. Following the Persian tradition Roman engineers and forced laborers were detailed in the southwest of Iran, where they built the dam Band-e Kaisar in Shushtar and the Bridge of Dezful.
After the Battle of Edessa the Roman Orient defense broke down temporarily. Shapur took several cities, especially Antioch was sacked for the second time. But the generals Macrianus and Ballista succeeded apparently to collect the remaining Roman troops and beat Shapur at Korykos. The Persians then retreated back behind the Euphrates. Macrianus but then had his sons Macrianus Minor and Quietus proclaimed emperors and turned against the legitimate emperor Gallienus, the son of Valerian; he found his sons death. After the Palmyrene prince Septimius Odaenathus had defeated 261 Quietus and Ballista in Emesa and his conversations with the Sassanids were fruitless, he took over as deputy to the Emperor the leadership of the remaining Roman troops in the east. Nominally in Gallienus ' behalf surprised Odaenathus the Persian troops on the march back, beat her and penetrated in the subsequent period even briefly to Ctesiphon before, but without being able to liberate Valerian - the emperor died in captivity. Due to the defeat against Odaenath and problems on their eastern border, the Sassanid victory at Edessa could not exploit ultimately, even if Shapur ausschlachtete his success for propaganda purposes. However, it should not take more than 20 years before the Romans could go back 282 against the Persians on the offensive under the emperor Carus.
Swell
- Eutropius, Breviarium urbe condita from 9.7
- Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum 5
- John Zonaras, Epitome historiarum 12.23
- Zosimus, New History 1.36