Shapur I's second Roman campaign was the second of three victorious campaigns that the Persian king Shapur I led against the Roman Empire in 252–256 AD. This campaign took place as part of the Roman–Persian wars, an escalation of the Roman–Parthian Wars.
Background After Shapur I defeated and killed the Roman Emperor Gordian III, the new Roman Emperor, Philip the Arab, was forced to sign a "disgraceful" treaty with Shapur I and to surrender Mesopotamia and Armenia., "They probably intended to get as far as the Sasanian capital Ktesiphon but at the beginning of the year 244, Shapur I scored a decisive victory against the Roman army at Misik. Gordian III died in battle" "It is understandable that Roman national pride transferred the responsibility of the defeat, in which Gordian III became the first Roman emperor to lose his life on enemy battlefield, to Philip. On the other hand, the feeling of the Sasanian triumph was immortalized in several rock-reliefs of Šāpur I, and the victory at Misiḵē was mentioned by a boastful Šāpur as the single military event within this first campaign."
The war In 252, Shapur invaded the Roman Empire again, conquering Nisibis and destroyed a 60.000 strong Roman force at Barbalissos.Encyclopaedia Iranica "And we annihilated a Roman force of 60,000 at Barbalissus [modern Qalʿat al-Bālis, on the left bank of the Euphrates in Syria] and we burned and ravaged the province of Syria and all its dependencies; and in that one campaign we conquered from the Roman empire the following forts and cities (some thirty-six of them are named)"The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337, "He captured several towns and then destroyed a Roman army of 60000 men at Barbalissus (Balis) on the large bend of the Euphrates to the north." The next year, the Sasanian forces laid siege to the city of Emesa and defeated the Roman forces at Antioch.A Companion to Late Antiquity, "In a devastating campaign in AD 253, Shapur ravaged northern Syria, took Hierapolis, managed to penetrate Roman territory as far as Antioch, and captured this third largest city of the Roman empire." During the years 253-256, the Sasanian armies destroyed and sacked more than 35 cities, including Dura Europos. The burning and looting show that while Shapur I deported a great number of populations, as he had no intention of keeping the territories occupied by his forces.
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