Exit Gordianus, but how? Shapur’s trilingual inscription revisited

Abstract

This article aims at re-evaluating the Classical (Eutropius, Historia Augusta, Ammianus), Byzantine (Orosius, Zosimus, Zonaras) and Iranian (the trilingual Kaʿba-ye Zardošt inscription) sources on the death of the Roman emperor Gordian III during his campaign against the Sasanid king Shapur I in AD 244. In the current scholarly debate, two groups of scholars can be distinguished: the first group, following the Classical and Byzantine sources, argues that Gordian III was killed by his own peers, attributing a vicious role to his imperial successor Philip the Arab. Basing themselves on the Iranian sources, the second group believes that Shapur I claimed to have killed Gordian III in a military confrontation. The study will use historical and linguistic arguments, focussing on the trilingual Kaʿba-ye Zardošt inscription, to come to a new historical interpretation about the end of the life of Gordian III.