Siege of Dura-Europos (256): Sasanian Assault on a Roman Town

The siege of Dura-Europos was a Sasanian Persian assault, around AD 256, on a Roman garrison town on the Euphrates in eastern Syria. The town fell and was abandoned, but the Romans’ desperate defensive work, which buried whole streets under earth, preserved some of the most remarkable buildings of the ancient world, including a painted synagogue and one of the earliest known Christian churches. Excavations have also uncovered a grim tunnel battle that may be the earliest archaeological evidence of chemical warfare.

Background: a town between empires

Dura-Europos stood on a cliff above the west bank of the Euphrates, near the modern village of Salhiyeh. It was founded around 300 BC as a fortress-colony of the Seleucid Empire, and named Europos after the Macedonian birthplace of King Seleucus I; its actual founder was probably his general Nicanor. Dura, its local name, means “fortress”.

Around 113 BC it passed to the Parthians and grew into a prosperous trading town on the route between Mesopotamia and Syria. In AD 165, during the eastern war of the emperor Lucius Verus, Rome took the town. By the early 3rd century it had become an important military base, with a large garrison quartered in the northern part of the city.

Its population was remarkably mixed. Greek, Aramaic, Palmyrene, Latin, Middle Persian and Hebrew inscriptions have been found there, and its people worshipped Greek, Semitic and Iranian gods, as well as the Jewish God and Christ.

The Sasanian threat

In 224 the Sasanian dynasty overthrew the Parthians (see the Battle of Hormozdgan). The new rulers of Iran were much more aggressive towards Rome. Under Shapur I (reigned c. 240–270), Sasanian armies won major victories over Roman forces in Mesopotamia and Syria.

In the early 250s Shapur defeated a large Roman army at Barbalissos on the Euphrates and sacked Antioch, the greatest city of the Roman East. Dura, a lonely outpost on the river, lay directly in the path of these campaigns. It may have been briefly captured during an earlier attack around 253 before its final siege.

Preparing the defences

The main threat came from the open desert to the west, where the city wall was most exposed. The defenders knew that Sasanian engineers used ramps and tunnels to break city walls.

To strengthen the western wall, the garrison built a huge earth embankment against its inner face. To do this, they filled in the buildings along the street just inside the wall, now called Wall Street, with rubble and sand. Houses, temples, a synagogue and a Christian meeting house were buried. A matching earthwork was built on the outside of the wall, covered with mud brick.

This hasty engineering work is the reason so much of Dura survives. The buried buildings were protected for almost 1,700 years.

The siege

The Sasanians attacked with every method of ancient siege warfare. They built an assault ramp near the south-west corner and dug mines (tunnels) beneath the walls and towers to make them collapse.

One mine was dug under Tower 19 on the western wall. The Romans dug a countermine to intercept it. When the tunnels met, a fierce underground fight took place.

In the 1930s excavators found the remains of about 20 Roman soldiers piled in the Roman countermine, with their weapons, armour and coins. Nearby lay the body of a single Sasanian soldier, wearing mail and a helmet.

In 2009 the archaeologist Simon James of the University of Leicester re-examined the evidence. He argued that the Sasanian attackers had burned bitumen and sulphur crystals in their tunnel, using the draught to blow choking, poisonous smoke into the Roman countermine. The Roman soldiers would have been overcome in seconds. James suggested the Sasanian soldier may himself have been caught in the fumes. His interpretation has been widely reported, though, like all such reconstructions, it rests on careful reading of old excavation records.

The exact course of the final assault is unknown. The Sasanian mines appear to have partly collapsed the wall, but the earth embankment held it up. However the end came, the city fell. The latest coins found at Dura date to 256, which is why that year is usually given for its capture, although some scholars prefer 257.

What happened afterwards

After its capture Dura-Europos was abandoned. Its population was probably deported deeper into the Sasanian empire, as Shapur did with captives from other Roman cities. The site was later mentioned only rarely by travellers and slowly disappeared under sand.

For Rome, the loss was one of a string of disasters in the East. Only a few years later Shapur captured the emperor Valerian himself at the Battle of Edessa in 260.

Rediscovery and excavation

In 1920, during the British occupation of the region after the First World War, soldiers digging trenches at the site uncovered wall paintings in a temple. The Belgian scholar Franz Cumont then carried out excavations in 1922–1923.

From 1928 to 1937 large-scale excavations were conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, led scientifically by the historian Michael Rostovtzeff. They uncovered:

• The synagogue, rebuilt in the 240s, with walls painted with scenes from the Hebrew Bible, such as Moses and the Exodus. It is the best-preserved ancient synagogue decoration ever found and was reassembled in the National Museum of Damascus.
• The Christian house church, a private house converted for worship around 232–233, with a baptistery decorated with paintings that include the Good Shepherd and scenes of Jesus healing. It is among the earliest identified Christian buildings. The baptistery is now at the Yale University Art Gallery.
• A Mithraeum, a shrine to the god Mithras, as well as temples of Palmyrene and Greek gods.
• Military finds, including a painted wooden shield and rare horse armour, which are among the best evidence for 3rd-century Roman equipment.

Dura in the Syrian civil war

During the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, Dura-Europos was severely damaged by illegal digging. Satellite images from 2014 and later showed thousands of looting pits across the site. Much of the ancient town that had not been excavated is believed to have been destroyed or plundered.

Key people

• Shapur I: Sasanian King of Kings whose campaigns against Rome in the 250s led to the capture of Dura. His own inscriptions list many Roman cities he took, although Dura is not clearly named among them.
• The Roman garrison: legionary detachments and auxiliary units, including the Twentieth Cohort of Palmyrenes, whose archive of papyri survived at the site.
• Franz Cumont (1868–1947): Belgian historian of religion who led the first excavations.
• Michael Rostovtzeff (1870–1952): Russian-American historian at Yale who directed the great excavations of 1928–1937.
• Simon James: British archaeologist whose study of the siege mines proposed the use of toxic smoke.

Timeline

• c. 300 BC: Seleucid foundation of Europos on the Euphrates.
• c. 113 BC: Dura passes under Parthian control.
• AD 165: Roman forces capture the town.
• c. 232–233: A private house is converted into a Christian church.
• c. 244–245: The synagogue is rebuilt and painted.
• c. 253: Sasanian campaign in Syria; Antioch is sacked.
• c. 256: Siege and capture of Dura-Europos by Shapur I.
• 1920: British soldiers uncover wall paintings at the site.
• 1928–1937: Yale-French Academy excavations.
• 2009: Simon James presents evidence of toxic smoke in the siege mines.

Why it matters

The siege of Dura-Europos destroyed a town but saved its memory. The buildings buried by its defenders give a rare, detailed picture of daily life, religion and warfare on the Roman frontier, and their paintings changed how historians understand early Jewish and Christian art.