The compilation and translation of this collection of texts on Romano-Persian relations were begun by Sam Lieu about five years ago for students taking his course on the history of Roman Mesopotamia (and adjacent Syria) at Warwick University. The need for some sort of collection was particularly felt for the period c. AD 224–350 because of the diverse nature of the surviving evidence and the lack of a major historical source. Michael Dodgeon joined the task of translating when the collection was already half completed, thus enabling Sam Lieu to extend his search for relevant material and, later, to concentrate on compiling the notes and the appendices. We are both extremely grateful to Richard Stoneman of Routledge for his generous invitation to publish what can only be regarded as a working collection since a great deal of new research remains to be done on Rome’s Eastern Frontier and relations with Persia in one of the more tempestuous and less well-studied periods of its history. Richard’s personal interest in this collection and his infinite patience have been invaluable assets to the editors. It is fortunate that the first part of the excellent commentary by Wolfgang Felix on the literary sources on Romano-Sassanian relations (Antike literarische Quellen zur Aussenpolitik des Sasanidenstaates, Vienna, 1985) became available to us at a time when it was still possible to make additions and alterations to our collection. Our debt to Felix’s work is enormous and is amply reflected in the notes to the first five chapters of this collection. It is a cause of some regret that we could not delay the publication of our collection until after the appearance of the second part of his work covering the period from AD 309 onwards.
The diverse origins of the texts in this collection (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, Palmyrene, Middle Persian, and Armenian) necessitated our turning to friends and colleagues for help at every stage of compilation. We are immeasurably indebted to their willingness to give of their valuable time. Sebastian Brock, always an unfailing source of profound knowledge and learned advice for anyone working on the history of the Near East in this period, undertook the arduous task of revising the translations of all the Syriac texts and Palmyrene inscriptions in this collection. Ahmad al-Issa, Doris Dance, and Sheila Vince have contributed much to the preparation of the translations given in the appendices. James Russell kindly checked Mrs Vince’s translation of parts of Renoux’s French translation of Ephrem’s Sermones de Nicomedia against the original Armenian. Paddy Considine generously agreed to translate several chapters from the History of the Armenians of Faustus of Buzanda at short notice. Stephen Mitchell read the first draft of the collection and proffered many useful corrections, additions, and suggestions. His fellow Anatolian researcher, Stephen Hill, corrected a number of misidentifications we had made of Cilician place names given in the Great Inscription of Shapur I.David Kennedy gave us much of his valuable time and expert knowledge in checking our attempts to identify the place-names in the sections of the Notitia Dignitatum which cover Syria and Arabia and made available to us material which is still in press. Werner Sundermann kindly commented on the first part of the collection from the perspective of an Iranologist and has saved us from a number of factual and chronological errors. Much help and advice on the translations were also received from James Jordan, Charles and Marna Morgan, Judith Lieu, and Ze’ev Rubin. Tim Barnes, Roger Blockley, Han Drijvers, and Michael Speidel generously sent us off-prints of their articles and monographs. Kay Rainsley ungrudgingly undertook the bulk of the word-processing and we owe much to her skill, dedication, and good humour. Michael Dodgeon is deeply indebted to Brian H.Warmington of Bristol University for his critical but kind direction of his earlier research. He would also like to express his gratitude to his wife Jean for her painstaking help with proof-reading. Sam Lieu would like to record a personal word of thanks to Sir Ronald Syme for several stimulating and informative discussions on the extracts from the Scriptores Historiae Augustae included in this collection and also to Peter Brown for first introducing him to the history of the fascinating world which existed between the Roman and the Sassanian Empires.
A grant for ‘innovative teaching’ from the Nuffield Foundation to Sam Lieu enabled work on this collection to be started at Warwick University alongside his other academic and administrative commitments. He is grateful to the Foundation for the award of a further research grant on Urbanism in Mesopotamia in the Parthian and Roman periods which yielded much material that is relevant to this collection. He would also like to thank the Wolfson Foundation for a research grant on Roman foreign policy, and the British Academy for two small research grants, one on Libanius and the other on the Artemii Passio. The Research and Innovation Committee and the European Humanities Research Centre, both of Warwick University, have made a number of small grants over the last five years to the project, mainly to cover secretarial, reprographic, and travel costs. Without the generous help from all these grant-giving bodies, the task of compiling a documentary history which draws material from more than a hundred classical, oriental, and medieval sources, as well as collections of inscriptions and papyri, would have been well nigh impossible from local resources. The main part of the research for this collection was carried out at the Joint Library of the Hellenic and Roman Societies in London. The helpfulness of its staff is a delight to record.