I’ve written about how in 260AD, Emperor Valerian (253-260AD) led the Roman military towards the Sassanian Persian Empire, dominated by King Shapur I. On the Battle of Edessa, the Roman military was decisively defeated, and Valerian was taken prisoner. This was an unprecedented and catastrophic occasion—a Roman Emperor had been captured alive on the battlefield. That was the primary time in historical past. That set off a monetary panic.
When Valerian was captured and Rome couldn’t rescue him, the arrogance within the Empire started to break down. Folks had been even abruptly skeptical about accepting Roman cash. Would they nonetheless be price something since they had been valued over and above their precise metallic content material?
A doc from Egypt has survived illustrating the monetary disaster that was unleashed. It’s from Aurelius Ptolemaeus who’s the strategus of the Oxyrhynchitenome. The general public officials gathered and accused the bankers of closing their doorways on account of their unwillingness to simply accept the divine cash of the Emperors. It grew to become needed that an order needed to be issued to all of the house owners of the banks directing them to open and settle for and trade all cash besides the completely spurious and counterfeit. It was additionally directed that all who engaged in enterprise transactions who refused to conform can be penalized. (POxy 1411 260AD, cited by Burnett 1987: p104)
Valerian’s seize was an enormous propaganda victory for Shapur. Persian inscriptions and rock reliefs (like at Naqsh-e Rostam and Bishapur) present Valerian humiliated—submitting to Shapur on his knees, or being held captive by the king. That is what Iran has changed into a statue.
Valerian’s physique was by no means returned to Rome and his son, Gallienus couldn’t rescue his father as a result of all the Roman world was on hearth, and leaving the guts of the empire undefended would have meant its rapid collapse. Whereas Valerian was within the East, Gallienus was combating for his life within the West.
Huge invasions by the Germanic tribes, the Alamanni and Franks, had damaged by means of the Rhine frontier, penetrating deep into Gaul, Raetia, and even reaching so far as Italy and Spain. The Goths and different tribes had been launching devastating seaborne raids throughout the Black Sea and the Aegean, attacking the Balkans and the coast of Asia Minor. If Gallienus had marched the majority of his military east to Persia, there would have been nothing to cease these Germanic tribes from overrunning Italy and sacking Rome itself.
The seize of Valerian created an influence vacuum and a notion of weak point that instantly led to riot additionally inside the Roman Empire. Simply after Valerian’s seize, the navy commander Postumus was proclaimed emperor within the West. He seized management of Gaul, Germania, Britannia, and Hispania, making a separate, breakaway empire that will final for 14 years. Gallienus spent the subsequent a number of years combating Postumus in a civil conflict, unable to dislodge him.
Within the East, the Sasanian Persian King Shapur I, who had beforehand captured Roman Emperor (Valerian), invaded the japanese Roman provinces. With the central Roman authorities in disaster (the interval often called the Disaster of the Third Century), it fell to Zenobia’s Palmyrene forces to defend the area. Zenobia’s good common, Zabdas, was the first navy commander in these campaigns. The Palmyrene military soundly defeated the Persians, pushing them again and even securing territories like a lot of Roman Arabia and elements of Egypt.
This era noticed a revolving door of emperors and usurpers. Gallienus himself needed to cope with not less than eighteen recognized usurpers throughout his reign. Marching east would have been an open invitation for one more common to grab Italy. That is the place the legend is available in. Essentially the most grotesque account comes from the later Roman historian Lactantius, a Christian author who was deeply hostile to the pagan emperors who had persecuted Christians (Valerian was certainly one of them). He claims that Valerian died in captivity, King Shapur had his physique flayed (pores and skin eliminated). The pores and skin was then tanned and dyed with vermilion (a crimson pigment). This preserved, red-colored pores and skin was then full of straw and placed on show in a Persian temple as a everlasting conflict trophy and a logo of the Persian victory over Rome. Most assume that this account was invented as a strong piece of moralizing propaganda piece because the destiny of pagans.
