Rome and the East
The town of Batnae, founded in Anthemusia in early times by a band
of Macedonians, is separated by a short space from the river Euphrates;
it is filled with wealthy traders when, at the yearly festival, near the be-
ginning of the month of September, a great crowd of every condition
gathers for the fair, to traffic in the wares sent from India and China
[Seres], and in other articles that are regularly brought there in great
abundance by land and sea.^26Is the reference to ‘‘the Chinese’’ (Seres) an allusion to a ‘‘silk road’’ running
through the Asian land-mass? That is certainly possible. But there is also a
reference here to ‘‘the Indians,’’ and to goods coming by sea as well as by
land. What this means is explained when Ammianus describes Julian’s last
expedition, on which his army marched out in , from Antioch through
Beroea (Aleppo) and Hierapolis (hence by the more southerly route), and
then to the Euphrates. From there he crossed over to Batnae, thus apparently
travelling north-eastwards to join the more northerly route, and from there
continued to Carrhae, the ancient Harran: ‘‘From there two different royal
highways lead to Persia: the one on the left through Adiabene and over the
Tigris; the other, on the right, through Assyria and across the Euphrates.’’^27
Julian then pretended to march towards the Tigris, but in fact followed the
other route, in fact exactly that traced in theParthian Stations: that is to say,
down the Balikh to Callinicum on the Euphrates; on to the confluence of
the Chabur and the Euphrates, where Diocletian had established the fortress
of Circesium; then past the now deserted town of Dura; and then further
south to the King’s Canal, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon.
These two alternative ways of starting from Syria therefore represented
variants on an established means of reaching northern Mesopotamia. The
central feature of both was the step of avoiding the long curve of the Eu-
phrates by crossing to the headwaters of the Balikh on the Mesopotamian
shelf, before turning south to travel down the Balikh to the Euphrates. In the
fourth century this area was Roman territory; but conversely the Euphrates
below the Chabur, including the deserted town of Dura, which had been in
Roman hands from the s to the s, was now Persian.
From the lower Euphrates, or from Ctesiphon on the Tigris, one could
travel down either river to the shores of the gulf and take ship for India. It
was on that shore, as a famous story in Cassius Dio records, that Trajan—
the only Roman emperor ever to reach the Gulf—had stood and watched a
merchantman setting off for India. If only he had been as young as Alexan-
. Ammianus , , , Loeb trans.
. Ammianus , , –., Loeb trans.