In 241 the young Gordian III decided on a campaign against Persia at the direction of his father-in-law, the powerful Praetorian Prefect, Time-sitheus.108 While the decision to conduct a Persian campaign took place in 241, preparations did not get underway until the following year. It was not until 243/244 that the campaign began and it saw the return of Mesopotamia to Rome before concluding with an invasion of Persia.
Gordian symbolically opened the gates of the Temple of Janus before leaving Rome to march east and he also sought the protection of Athena Promachos who had backed Athens at Marathon in the battle against the Persians.109 This is a further indication of how Roman rhetoric in wars with the Sasanian Persians attempted to link campaigns with the classical past, and it is sometimes used by those who argue that reports of Sasanian claims to Achaemenid territory was simply a literary device used by Roman authors. It is difficult to believe that the Persians were not aware of the rhetorical posturing of Gordian III and hence the context of these claims. We are poorly informed about the Persian campaign of Gordian III as most of the detail in the surviving texts referred to the nature of Gordian’s death and the elevation of Philip. Herodian’s account ended with the accession of Gordian III in 238, and Dio’s work finished c. 231. The other surviving sources are mostly later epitomes that provide only brief details of Gordian’s life and the Persian campaign. The longest account that survives is the ‘Lives of the Three Gordians’ in the Historia Augusta.
In an important study Kettenhofen traces the route taken by Gordian’s army through Asia Minor on the basis of the emperor’s adventus coinage, which was minted in the cities he visited along the way. Other numismatic observations were also made by Kettenhofen in an attempt to trace and date the march of Gordian’s army from Antioch to Mesopotamia. On this basis, he claimed that Gordian’s army departed Rome in 242 and marched through Asia Minor by way of Antioch in Pisidia before arriving at Antioch in Syria.110 The army left Antioch in spring, 243, crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma and made its way to Carrhae before fighting a successful battle at Rhesaina in Mesopotamia.111 The Persians are thought to have vacated Nisibis, Singara and smaller fortifications in the vicinity of these cities as the coinage indicates that these cities had begun minting again under the Romans by the second half of 243.112 Kettenhofen con-eluded that Gordian marched down the Khabur and along the Euphrates past Dura Europos before entering Persian territory where his army fought a battle at Meshike on the lower Euphrates in which he was probably killed.113
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