ABSTRACT
Valerian, the Emperor's father, with whom he had jointly ruled the Roman world, had not simply been killed in action, but, shameful disgrace had been captured by Shapur's Persians near the Mesopotamian city of Edessa. Valerian and Gallienus, the father-and-son emperors rising to the purple, at the temporary climax of the military crisis, believed themselves to have found the cure against the overstrain. For the period between Valerian's and Gallienus' accession and the defeat of Edessa, there is no single usurpation on record. In the summer, when Odainat defeated the Persians at the Euphrates, he was undisputedly the sole ruler of Palmyra, and one of the prominent representatives of the Roman imperial elite in the eastern provinces threatened by Shapur. Odainat was as much representative of the Roman Empire, as he was for his own city. The victory at the Euphrates marks an important stage on the way to this goal – no less, and no more either.
