Satala AD298 - a lost battle?

[Nathan Ross]

Well, that's a fact shared with a lot of battles, some of them quite famous (Battle of Hastings comes to mind).

But at least that was somewhere near Hastings (I'm guessing), and not around a hundred and fifty miles away!

But this is an interesting battle, wherever it was, and it has a couple of unusual anecdotes attached to it. The first is the story in Ammianus about the soldier who finds a bag of pearls in the loot of the Persian camp; he thinks the pearls are worthless and throws them away, but keeps the nice bag...

The other story is in Pawstos, and would be thought very unlikely if it wasn't also mentioned by three other sources: Galerius himself 'acted the part of a speculator' and went off secretly to the Persian royal camp with only two Armenian nobles, disguised as a cabbage seller, of all things - the ruse worked, the emperor had a good look around and returned to his troops. He then led them on some sort of rapid march, appearing suddenly before the Persian camp at dawn (presumably it was a night march, as Pawstos says he appeared 'in daylight') in an advantageous position...

One day, when I have time to take up the Livius.org project again, I will improve it.

Thanks - I don't think there's too much rush though! I've been reading Parker's The Empire Stops Here recently, and he describes Satala (and mentions the famous battle there, of course! :wink: ). But your site actually shows me what the remains of the fortress look like - an invaluable bonus.

Incidentally, do you have any idea of the direction of the Roman roads in the area? I'm assuming that one led south-ish from Satala towards Erzincan? It would be interesting to know which route Galerius's invasion might have taken towards the Armenian uplands - following the headwaters of the Euphrates up from Erzincan perhaps?