Triumph and Crisis

IN 165 THE ROMANS thrust forward into Mesopotamia. In the north Edessa was occupied and the pro-Roman ruler Mannus was restored to the principality of Osrhoene. A Roman army pursued the Parthians eastwards to Nisibis, which was also captured. When the retreating enemy reached the Tigris their general Chosrhoes only escaped by swimming the river and taking refuge in a cave. This part of the campaign may have been led by Martius Verus. Meanwhile, Avidius Cassius advanced down the Euphrates, and a major battle took place at Dura-Europus, an originally Greek city refortified by the Parthians, with a flourishing commercial and agricultural life. By the end of the year Cassius had brought his men far to the south and moved across Mesopotamia at its narrowest point to attack the twin cities on the Tigris, Seleucia on the right bank and the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, on the left. ¹ Seleucia welcomed the Romans and opened its gates. The vast city, with a population supposedly as large as 400,000, still retained its Hellenic characteristics. This support must have made it much easier for Cassius to complete the victory over Parthia by capturing Ctesiphon and burning the palace of Vologases. Yet Cassius was to blacken his own reputation and that of Rome by permitting the destruction of Seleucia as well. How this came about is not recorded in detail. Not surprisingly, a Roman version was to claim that ‘the Seleuceni had broken faith first’. Whatever the truth, the action marked the end of one of the major outposts of Greek civilisation in the east, not quite five hundred years after its foundation.