The 240s decade ran from January 1, 240, to December 31, 249.
Year 242 (CCXLII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gratus and Lepidus. The denomination 242 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.
Valerian was Roman emperor from 253 to spring 260 AD. He persecuted Christians and was later taken captive by the Persian emperor Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the first Roman emperor to be captured as a prisoner of war, causing shock and instability throughout the Roman Empire. The unprecedented event and the unknown fate of the captured emperor generated a variety of different reactions and "new narratives about the Roman Empire in diverse contexts".
Hormizd-Ardashir, better known by his dynastic name of Hormizd I, was the third Sasanian King of Kings (shahanshah) of Iran, who ruled from May 270 to June 271. He was the third-born son of Shapur I, under whom he was governor-king of Armenia, and also took part in his father's wars against the Roman Empire. Hormizd I's brief time as ruler of Iran was largely uneventful. He built the city of Hormizd-Ardashir, which remains a major city today in Iran. He promoted the Zoroastrian priest Kartir to the rank of chief priest (mowbed) and gave the Manichaean prophet Mani permission to continue his preaching.
Shapur I was the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent until the death of the latter in 242. During his co-regency, he helped his father with the conquest and destruction of the Arab city of Hatra, whose fall was facilitated, according to Islamic tradition, by the actions of his future wife al-Nadirah. Shapur also consolidated and expanded the empire of Ardashir I, waged war against the Roman Empire, and seized its cities of Nisibis and Carrhae while he was advancing as far as Roman Syria. Although he was defeated at the Battle of Resaena in 243 by Roman emperor Gordian III, he was the following year able to win the Battle of Misiche and force the new Roman Emperor Philip the Arab to sign a favorable peace treaty that was regarded by the Romans as "a most shameful treaty".
Shapur II, also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran. The longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history, he reigned for the entirety of his 70-year life, from 309 to 379. He was the son of Hormizd II.
Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus was Roman emperor from June 251 to August 253, in a joint rule with his son Volusianus.
Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus, also known as Aemilian, was Roman emperor for three months in 253.
Septimius Odaenathus was the founder king (Mlk) of the Palmyrene Kingdom who ruled from Palmyra, Syria. He elevated the status of his kingdom from a regional center subordinate to Rome into a formidable state in the Near East. Odaenathus was born into an aristocratic Palmyrene family that had received Roman citizenship in the 190s under the Severan dynasty. He was the son of Hairan, the descendant of Nasor. The circumstances surrounding his rise are ambiguous; he became the lord (ras) of the city, a position created for him, as early as the 240s and by 258, he was styled a consularis, indicating a high status in the Roman Empire.
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great.
Cyriades was a Roman rebel who betrayed the city of Antioch to Shapur I sometime during the 250s. His chief claim to fame is that he is enumerated as one of the Thirty Tyrants who supposedly tried to overthrow the emperor Gallienus.
The Battle of Edessa took place between the armies of the Roman Empire under the command of Emperor Valerian and Sasanian forces under Shahanshah Shapur I in 260. The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces; for the first time, a Roman emperor was taken prisoner. As such, the battle is generally viewed as one of the worst disasters in military history.
The Battle of Ctesiphon took place on 29 May 363 between the armies of Roman Emperor Julian and an army of the Sasanian Empire outside the walls of the Persian capital Ctesiphon. The battle was a Roman victory, but eventually the Roman forces found themselves unable to continue their campaign as they were too far from their supply lines.
The Battle of Barbalissos was fought between the Sasanian Persians and Romans at Barbalissos. Shapur I used Roman incursions into Armenia as pretext and resumed hostilities with the Romans. The Sassanids attacked a Roman force of 60,000 strong at Barbalissos and the Roman army was destroyed. The defeat of this large Roman force left the Roman east open to attack and led to the eventual capture of Antioch and Dura Europos three years later. This battle is only known through Shapur I's inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam.
Barbalissos was a city in the Roman province of Euphratensis. Its site is marked by the ruins at Qala'at Balis, which partly retains the old name, south of Maskanah, in modern Syria, on the road from Aleppo to the site of Sura, where the Euphrates turns suddenly to the east.
Successianus was a Roman soldier, general and praetorian prefect in the third century AD of whom very little is known for certain. He is said to have distinguished himself as commander of the garrison of an allied city besieged by barbarian pirates, and then made praetorian prefect by the emperor Valerian on the strength of this. As praetorian prefect appears to have done useful work in restoring Antioch, the capital of the Roman East, after the devastation which had been inflicted by Shapur, the King of the Persians, in his invasion of 252. However, he was overwhelmed by the circumstances with which he had to contend when Shapur invaded on a second occasion in 260 and seems to have shared in the defeat of Valerian at the Battle of Edessa and his subsequent captivity in Persia.
Jindires is a town in northern Syria in the Afrin District of the Aleppo Governorate. It is located on the Afrin River, 68.4 kilometres (42.5 mi) northwest by road from Aleppo and 20.9 kilometres (13.0 mi) southwest of Afrin. Nearby localities include Deir Ballut and Bayadah to the southwest, Zahra to the northwest, Kafr Safra to the north, Afrin to the northeast and Burj Abdullah to the east. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Jindires had a population of 13,661 in the 2004 census. It was captured by the Turkish Military and its proxy, the "Syrian National Army" in March 2018.
The siege of Caesarea by the Sassanids under Shapur I took place following their siege of the Roman city of Antioch in 260 which followed their major victory over the Romans in the Battle of Edessa.
The siege of Nisibis took place when the Sasanians under Shah Shapur I besieged the Roman city of Nisibis in 252. This marks the beginning of Shapur's I second invasion of the Roman empire which saw the first Sassanid invasion of Syria; the year of the invasion is debated as Shapur's inscription from Naqsh-e Rustam regarding his second campaign against Rome do not mention the city of Nisibis. But Syriac and Arabic sources, mainly the Chronicle of Seert and Al-Tabari, mention that Shapur took Nisibis in his eleventh regnal year; according to the historian David Stone Potter, this regnal year is 252. Another Syriac account, the Liber Caliphorum, from the eighth century, mentions the invasion of the city in 252.
The Cameo with Valerian and Shapur I is now on display in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It has the inventory number Camée 360. and was bought in 1893. The cameo is 6,8 cm high and 10,3 cm wide and made of sardonyx, and is thought to date to about 260 AD. For the carving, the different colored layers of the stone was used. The background is dark, the figures are white and details are again dark again as they are on the highest level.
