His old friend and personal physician, Oribasius of Pergamum, tried desperately to save him, but no hand of men would be able to save the Emperor. There the Romans were able to repel the Persian attackers, but the Emperor was fatally wounded by a barbed spear that pierced his liver. Instead to follow the river, he ordered a march into the Persian hearthland trying to reconvene with the forces under Procopius.ĭuring the march north, the Roman and Persian forces face each other in battle near Maranga. When the Sassanid King of Kings, found about the roman force marching against his capital, he ordered his all army to move towards them, leaving Media to be ravaged by the second Roman force.Īt Ctesiphon, Iulianus managed to win a tactical victory against the Persians, but was unable to capture the city and to put his puppet, Shapur's brother Hormizd, in the Persian throne.Īfter the failed siege one of Iulianus most trust commanders, and one of his oldest friends, Salutius, advised the Emperor to retreat back into Roman territory.įollowing the advice Iulianus begun his retreat, by just like Alexander, he decided to take a different rout than the one he had used first. While the Roman-Armenian forces marched to Media, the rest of the Roman Army marched to the city of Circesium and from there they begun a march towards the capital of the Sassanid Empire. Once the Imperial forces crossed the Euphrates river, they begun to move towards Carrhae to give the false impression, that they would move down the Tigris.įor that reason Iulianus ordered the division of his forces, with thirty thousand men leaving to wreck havoc in Media, under the command of his cousin Procopius and General Sebastianus, with the Armenians being ordered to aid them. On rout, he ordered the Armenians to gather their army, under the command of their King Arsaces, and to wait for further instructions from the Emperor. The Imperial Field Army, the Comitatenses, comprised of almost seventy thousand soldiers from all corners of the Roman Empire, left Antioch and begun a march north towards the Euphrates.

Having the complete loyalty of the armies of the Western half of the Empire, especially the owns from Gaul, Iulianus decided to ensure the loyalty of the Eastern armies, by leading them and his Gallic troops into a successful war against Sassanid Persia. After having won the civil war against his cousin, Constantius II, Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus, spent two years reasserting his grip in the Roman Empire.

Roma invicta rome 2