Constantius II was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death.
The 330s decade ran from January 1, 330, to December 31, 339.
Year 337 (CCCXXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Felicianus and Titianus. The denomination 337 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Numerian was Roman emperor from 283 to 284 with his older brother Carinus. They were sons of Carus, a general raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.
Galerius Valerius Maximianus was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. While acting as Caesar under Emperor Diocletian, Galerius obtained victory warring against the Persian Sassanian Empire, defeating Narseh at the battle of Satala in 298 and possibly sacking the Sassanian capital of Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300. Although he was a staunch opponent of Christianity, Galerius ended the Diocletianic Persecution when he issued the Edict of Toleration in Serdica (Sofia) in 311.
Shapur II, also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran. He took the title at birth and held it until his death at age 70, making him the longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history. He was the son of Hormizd II.
Theophanes the Confessor was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking up the religious life. Theophanes attended the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 and resisted the iconoclasm of Leo V the Armenian, for which he was imprisoned. He died shortly after his release.
George Syncellus was a Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastical official. He lived many years in Palestine as a monk, before coming to Constantinople, where he was appointed synkellos to Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople. He later retired to a monastery to write what was intended to be his great work, a chronicle of world history, Ekloge chronographias, or Extract of Chronography. According to Anastasius Bibliothecarius, George "struggled valiantly against heresy [i.e. Iconoclasm] and received many punishments from the rulers who raged against the rites of the Church", although the accuracy of the claim is suspect.
John Malalas was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch.
The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius of Caesarea. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in A.D. 325. Book 1 contained sets of extracts from earlier writers; book 2 contained a technically innovative list of dates and events in tabular format.
During the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring Christianity, and theologians and historians have often argued about which form of early Christianity he subscribed to. There is no consensus among scholars as to whether he adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth, or, as claimed by Eusebius of Caesarea, encouraged her to convert to the faith he had adopted.
The Battle of Singara was fought in 344 between Roman and Sasanian Persian forces. The Romans were led in person by Emperor Constantius II, while the Persian army was led by King Shapur II of Persia. It is the only one of the nine pitched battles recorded to have been fought in a war of over twenty years, marked primarily by indecisive siege warfare, of which any details have been preserved. Although the Persian forces prevailed on the battlefield, both sides suffered heavy casualties.
The Roman–Persian Wars, also called the Roman–Iranian Wars, took place between the Greco-Roman world and the Iranian world, beginning with the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire in 54 BC and ending with the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire in 628 AD. While the conflict between the two civilizations did involve direct military engagements, a significant role was played by a plethora of vassal kingdoms and allied nomadic nations, which served as buffer states or proxies for either side. Despite nearly seven centuries of hostility, the Roman–Persian Wars had an entirely inconclusive outcome, as both the Byzantines and the Sasanians were attacked by the Rashidun Caliphate as part of the early Muslim conquests, which had begun under Muhammad a few years earlier in the adjacent Arabian Peninsula. The Rashidun offensives resulted in the collapse of the Sasanian Empire and largely confined the Byzantine Empire to Anatolia for the ensuing Arab–Byzantine Wars.
Festus was a Late Roman historian. His name appears in some manuscripts as Rufius Festus, Rufus Festus, Sextus Rufus or Sextus Festus, but they appear to be corruptions. He is mainly known as the author of an epitome titled Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani, written around AD 370 and commissioned by the Eastern emperor Valens in preparation for his war against Persia. The Breviarium covers the entire history of the Roman state from the foundation of the city. The book consists of 30 chapters treating Roman events in a terse overview, mainly focused on military and political conflicts. It is estimated to be a work of very low quality.
Henri Valois or in classical circles, Henricus Valesius, was a philologist and a student of classical and ecclesiastical historians. He is the elder brother to Adrien Valois (1607–1692), who described his life in a biography, which is the basis for all modern biographies of Henri Valois.
Julian's Persian expedition began in March 363 AD and was the final military campaign of the Roman emperor Julian. The Romans fought against the Sasanian Empire, ruled at the time by Shapur II.
The German and Sarmatian campaigns of Constantine were fought by the Roman Emperor Constantine I against the neighbouring Germanic peoples, including the Franks, Alemanni and Goths, as well as the Sarmatian Iazyges, along the whole Roman northern defensive system to protect the empire's borders, between 306 and 336.
The gens Rufia, occasionally spelled Ruffia, was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are not mentioned in history until imperial times, and they achieved little prominence until the late third century, from which time the family rose in importance, gaining the consulship on a number of occasions from the time of Constantine the Great to that of Justinian, and frequently holding the post of praefectus urbi.
The Perso-Roman wars of 337–361 were a series of military conflicts fought between the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire between 337 and 361. They were a result of long-standing competition between the rival powers over influence in the border kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia, as well as the desire of Shapur II, after his Arab campaign, to revoke the unfavorable terms of the Treaty of Nisibis, which had concluded the previous war between the empires. Though the Romans under Constantius II were defeated in several sanguinary encounters, Shapur was unable to secure a decisive victory.
The Sasanian campaigns of Galerius were a series of military expeditions which saw the Romans and the Persian Sassanids clash, which were part of a war that lasted overall from 296 to 298 AD, which culminated in the Battle of Satala. With his accession to the throne Narseh had clearly expressed his intention to break the peace treaty signed in 287 between Diocletian and Vahram II, which had put an end to sixty years of wars between the Persians and the Romans, began with the rise of the new Sasanian dynasty of Artaxerxes.
