Dura Europos

Back to pondering the third century AD, and some thoughts on a favourite subject of mine, an ancient city on the Euphrates known as Dura Europos.  I sometimes wonder why I'm so fascinated by this place.  I've never been there, and can't imagine I ever shall.  It's thousands of miles from my main area of ancient interest - the North of Britannia and Hadrian's Wall - in fact, it could hardly be further away and yet still be within the empire.  Perhaps that's part of the fascination - that and the place being so 'alien' to me living in damp old North-West England - Dura Europos being situated, as it is, beside the Euphrates in the Syrian desert.

Europos was founded in 303 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's successors, on the West bank of the Euphrates - not very far where the river crosses the present-day border between Syria and Iraq.  It was captured by the Parthians in 113BC, with the Romans arriving in the 1st century BC, though they didn't control the city until AD164.  In AD256, or thereabouts, the city was besieged, and fell to the Sassanid Persians under Shapur I, at which point the city was abandoned, only being rediscovered in the 1920s, by some British soldiers digging a trench.

There are so many marvellous surviving artifacts - many of them military - including armour, shields, horse armour, ballista bolts, arrows, and all sorts of other objects - too many varieties of object to name, not to mention wonderful wall-paintings - a synagogue, the earliest known 'house-church' - so many wonders.  I guess the richness is partly due to the site's abandonment for such a long time.

I'm just having a mad idea - hence the post related to my 'almost deceased' Fire in the East project - why don't I do another army?  I could do Palmyrenes.  They could fight the Sassanids - which they did, and won, in the 260s, capturing the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon not once, but twice, and 'rescuing' the eastern part of the Roman Empire.  They could also fight the Romans since they got 'a bit carried away' when rescuing the empire, and carved out their own little empire for a few years, under Zenobia, who was only finally defeated by Aurelian in AD274.  It'd be an interesting little army, with a mix of Roman and Eastern influences - the challenge would lie in creating a look which was distinctive, whilst still acknowledging the two main influences.  A&A Miniatures make some suitable figures.

Copyright © Dr. P.C. Hendry, 2010