The Battle of Misiche was a major battle fought between Sassanid Persia and the Roman Empire in Mesopotamia in 244 AD. Roman forces under Emperor Gordian III invaded Persia in 243. The decisive battle of the campaign took place at Misiche the following year, where the Romans were heavily defeated and the emperor killed.
Background[]
During the early 240s AD, just as the Roman Empire was being reunited internally, a new foreign threat presented itself in the form of the Sassanid Persian emperor Ardashir I. Since the ceasefire with the Roman emperor Severus Alexander in 233, the Sassanid king Ardashir had pulled back from his western dominions to consolidate control over the east. In the late 230s, Ardashir renewed his ambitions to push the Romans across the Hellespont, but, in 240, the elderly Ardashir decided to appoint his eldest son Shapur to serve as co-regent, and Shapur succeeded his father on his death in 242. The ambitions of the Sassanids passed fully to Shapur, who would become one of Rome's most notorious enemies, leading the Sassanids with a martial vigor that would transform the eastern Roman Empire into a perpetual warzone. Shapur aimed to win back control of Mesopotamia, and, in 240 and 241, he recaptured Carrhae, Nisibis, and Hatra, which had been lost to the Romans while the Parthians had been distracted with the loss of their empire. The Sassanids soon pressed on into Syria, leading to an outbreak of war with Rome. The young Roman emperor Gordian III's capable administrator and father-in-law Gaius Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus was dispatched east to lead the Roman response. The unchecked string of Sassanid successes came to an end when a complacent Rome grew aggressive under Timesitheus; in 243, Timestiheus met the Sassanids at Resaena, where the professional legions triumphed over the amateur Sassanid forces. Carrhae and Nisibis were recaptured, but the Sassanids destroyed Hatra before the Romans reclaimed it. Shapur withdrew to lick his wounds, and Timesitheus planned to inflict a decisive defeat on the Sassanids to deter future aggression against romee. However, Timesitheus requested that Gordian come east to oversee the subsequent campaigns and share in his glory. By autumn, Gordian was in Syria with a front-row seat of the humiliation of the Sassanids. Shortly after, however, Timesitheus suddenly died at his camp, with some claiming that the ambitious Marcus Julius Philippus (Philip the Arab) and his brother had poisoned him. Philip was appointed Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, while Gordian decided to prematurely declare victory over the Sassanids.
Battle[]
In 243 AD, Gordian started a second campaign against the Sassanids. In February 244, the Sassanids fought back fiercely to halt the Roman advance on the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, and the two sides met at Misiche (near Fallujah, Iraq) in the winter months. The Roman army, which included Gothic and German allies, was defeated by the Sassanids in a great frontal battle, and Gordian was killed (either being crushed by his horse, dying on the battlefield, or being murdered by his frustrated men during the retreat at Zaitha) and the Roman force was destroyed. The Romans made Philip the Arab their new Caesar (with some speculating that Philip had Gordian assassinated), and Philip came to the Sassanids for terms and gave them 500,000 denarii in tribute in exchange for an end to hostilities.