The contemporary sources presented in this chapter indicate that immediately after ad 224 the Sasanians refused to acknowledge Rome’s supremacy in the Near and Middle East. The enormous Persian capacity for expansion
During the course of the third century was based on and reinforced by the euphoric successful foundation of the Sasanian Empire and moreover facilitated by the deep ‘crisis’ Rome faced during this period, a crisis that forced the Western power into a defensive position and led to the primary goal of preserving its own possessions. However, as soon as the political, economic and social problems of the Roman Empire receded, the Romans similarly exploited phases of instability within the Sasanian Empire and embarked on numerous military offensives against the territories held by their Eastern opponent in order to underline their claim to world domination, which continued to exist up to the fall of the Roman Empire. Evidently, the imperial prestige on both sides significantly fostered the emergence of conflicts between the two powers.
Herodian vi.2.1—2
(i) For thirteen years he [sc. Severus Alexander] reigned in this way, and so far as it was up to him, irreproachably. In the fourteenth year,173 however, he was suddenly sent reports by the governors in Syria and Mesopotamia informing him of the following: the Persian king Ardasir [I]174 had defeated the Parthians and had dissolved their rule in the East. He had put to death Artabanos,175 who used to be called Great King and had worn two diadems.176 Moreover, Ardasir had conquered all of the barbaric areas around and was forcing them to pay tribute. He was still not satisfied and was not staying within the borderline of the river Tigris but crossing its banks and thus the borders of the Roman Empire. He was overrunning Mesopotamia and threatening Syria. (2) He was determined to re-conquer for Persia the whole territory across from Europe and cut off by the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara, which as a whole is called Asia, because he viewed this as his inheritance, arguing that the whole area, as far as Ionia and Caria, had been administered by Persian satraps from the time of Cyrus, who was the first to transfer power from the Medes to the Persians, to the time of Darius, the last of the Persian kings, whose power the Macedonian Alexander destroyed. He claimed that it was now his task to renew this empire for the Persians just as they had possessed it in the past.
World History
