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Updated: May 3, 2025
Sapor was instructed to ingratiate himself with the Armenian nobles, by inviting them to visit him, by feasting them, making them presents, holding friendly converse with them, hunting with them; and was bidden to use such influence as he might obtain to convert the chiefs from Christianity to Zoroastrianism.
There are but two things that impress the beholder the Palace of Sapor, and the Temple of Mithras, near it. These truly would be noted even in Palmyra.
It may be doubted whether, among all the reliefs of the Sassanians, there is one which is so entirely devoid of artistic merit as this coarse and dull production. The coins of Sapor III. and his predecessor, Artaxerxes II., have little about them that is remarkable.
The army, nominally commanded by Gordian, really acted under his orders. Sapor hastily evacuated most of his conquests, and retired first across the Euphrates, and then across the more eastern river, while the Romans advanced as he retreated, placed garrisons in the various Mesopotamian towns, and even threatened the great city of Ctesiphon.
It seems thus to be on the whole most probable that the Roman emperor was not more severely treated than the generalty of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed with abusing the rights of conquest. The hostile feeling of Odenathus against Sapor did not cease with the retreat of the latter across the Euphrates.
He seems to have hoped that, if the unadorned language of the two statesmen failed to move Sapor, he might be won over by the persuasive eloquence of the professor of rhetoric. But Sapor was bent on war. He had concluded arrangements with the natives so long his adversaries in the East, by which they had pledged themselves to join his standard with all their forces in the ensuing spring.
Sapor hastily gave orders for the assailing column to retreat and seek the friendly shelter of the Persian camp, while he essayed to maintain his advantage in a different way.
Iberia was at this time under the government of a king bearing the name of Sauromaces, who had received his investiture from Rome, and was consequently likely to uphold Roman interests. Sapor invaded Iberia, drove Sauromaces from his kingdom, and set up a new monarch in the person of a certain Aspacures, on whose brow he placed the coveted diadem.
Negotiations seem to have alternated with hostilities during the interval between A.D. 371 and 376; but they resulted in nothing, until, in this last-named year, a peace was made, which gave tranquillity to the East during the remainder of the reign of Sapor. The terms upon which this peace was concluded are obscure.
Once more all the known resources of attack and defence were brought into play; and after a long siege, of which the most important incident was an attempt made by the bishop of the place to induce Sapor to withdraw, the wall was at last breached, the city taken, and its defenders indiscriminately massacred.
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