he was, had quitted Rome and marched through Mossia and Thrace into Asia, accompanied by a formidable army, and by at least one good general.  Timesitheus, whose daughter Gordian had recently married, though his life had hitherto been that of a civilian, exhibited, on his elevation to the dignity of Praetorian prefect, considerable military ability.  The army, nominally commanded by Gordian, really acted under his orders.  With it Timesitheus attacked and beat the bands of Sapor in a number of engagements, recovered Antioch, crossed the Euphrates, retook Carrhae, defeated the Persian monarch in a pitched battle near Resaina (Ras-el-Ain), recovered Nisibis, and once more planted the Roman standards on the banks of the Tigris.  Sapor hastily evacuated most of his conquests, and retired first across the Euphrates and then across the more eastern river; while the Romans advanced as he retreated, placed garrisons in the various Mesopotamian towns, and even threatened the great city of Ctesiphon.  Gordian was confident that his general would gain further triumphs, and wrote to the Senate to that effect; but either disease or the arts of a rival cut short the career of the victor, and from the time of his death the Romans ceased to be successful.  The legions had, it would seem, invaded Southern Mesopotamia when the Praetorian prefect who had succeeded Timesitheus brought them intentionally into difficulties by his mismanagement of the commissariat; and at last retreat was determined on.  The young emperor was approaching the Khabour, and had almost reached his own frontier, when the discontent of the army, fomented by the prefect, Philip, came to a head.  Gordian was murdered at a place called Zaitha, about twenty miles south of Circesium, and was buried where he fell, the soldiers raising a tumulus in his honor.  His successor, Philip, was glad to make peace on any tolerable terms with the Persians; he felt himself insecure upon his throne, and was anxious to obtain the Senate’s sanction of his usurpation.  He therefore quitted the East in A.D. 244, having concluded a treaty with Sapor, by which Armenia seems to have been left to the Persians, while Mesopotamia returned to its old condition of a Roman province.

The peace made between Philip and Sapor was followed by an interval of fourteen years, during which scarcely anything is known of the condition of Persia.  We may suspect that troubles in the north-east of his empire occupied Sapor during this period, for at the end of it we find Bactria, which was certainly subject to Persia during the earlier years of the monarchy, occupying an independent position, and even assuming an attitude of hostility towards the Persian monarch.  Bactria had, from a remote antiquity, claims to pre-eminence among the Aryan nations.  She was more than once inclined to revolt from the Achaemenidae; and during the later Parthian period she had enjoyed a sort of semi-independence.  It would seem that she now succeeded in detaching herself altogether from her southern neighbor, and becoming a distinct and separate power.  To strengthen her position she entered into relations with Rome, which gladly welcomed any adhesions to her cause in this remote region.