ELECTRUM Strange Meeting at Salihiyeh: Who Discovered (or Encountered, or Identified, or Invented) Dura-Europos, and When? [29]

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ELECTRUM * Vol. 29 (2022): 301–328 doi:10.4467/20800909EL.22.029.16524 www.ejournals.eu/electrum

Strange Meeting at Salihiyeh: Who Discovered (or Encountered, or Identified, or Invented) Dura-Europos, and When?

Simon James http:/orcid.org/0000-0002-4002-5099

University of Leicester

Abstract: The centenary of the establishment of the Department of Classics at the University of Kraków coincides with that of the beginnings of the study of the ‘Pompeii of the Syrian Desert.’ In spring 1920, British Indian soldiers digging in the ruins known as Salihiyeh overlooking the Euphrates accidentally revealed ancient paintings. Recorded by archaeologist James Henry Breasted, these discoveries would soon lead to further excavations by Franz Cumont (1922–1923), and eventually to the great Yale-French Academy expedition under Mikhail Rostovtzeff (1928–1937). By then the site was famous as ‘Dura-Europos,’ giving us remarkable insights into Hellenistic Greek, Parthian, Roman, early Christian and Jewish life in the Middle East. Not the least of the discoveries related to the soldiers of Dura’s Roman garrison. This paper traces the history of the revelation—and, in part, invention—of Dura-Europos in the 1920s. It is a story of eminent scholars, but also of others who actually revealed the evidence: soldiers, both officers and men, of the armies of the British and French empires which dominated the region at the time. Today, at a time of ‘decolonisation’ of scholarship, the very formulation ‘Dura-Europos’ itself is a subject of contention. Keywords: Dura-Europos, Salihiyeh, Syria, Terentius, colonial archaeology, soldiers. It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped… Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless…

The opening lines of the nightmarish poem ‘Strange Meeting,’ written by the British soldier-poet Wilfred Owen shortly before his own death on the Western Front near the end of the First World War in 1918, could almost be describing another actual but similarly

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strange subterranean encounter which took place two years later, on the banks of the Euphrates. On 4 May 1920, sepoys (infantrymen) of the British Empire’s Indian army were digging in the ruins of the ancient deserted city of Salihiyeh. Some weeks before, while cutting defensive trenches, they had accidentally revealed a remarkably well-preserved ancient wall painting. Now, under orders to look for more, they exposed a second scene. This depicted a group of divine figures on the left side, and a standard bearer and a sacrificing military officer flanking a central altar, while on the right ranks of soldiers could be seen ‘lifting… hands, as if to bless…’ (Fig. 1). These men were Roman soldiers; from Latin and Greek labels on the painting, subsequently relatable to other texts which would be found at this place, they are identifiable as the military tribune Julius Terentius and men of cohors XX Palmyrenorum, a thousand-strong imperial auxiliary regiment of infantry, cavalry and dromedary troops. As I have previously written, ‘thus it was that Asian auxiliaries of the British empire came face to face, so to speak, with Asian auxiliaries of the Roman empire’.1 The 1m-tall painting is now called the ‘Sacrifice of Julius Terentius.’2 Adorning the wall of a sanctuary now known as the Temple of Bel,3 it depicted soldiers assembled at sacrifice in the presence of deities including two goddesses: Greek labels would identify these as the Tychai of Palmyra, 220 km west of the findspot, and of Δούρα: ‘Doura.’ Revelation of the painting, and then reading of the name, would identify this place as a hitherto obscure city mentioned by Isidore of Charax in his itinerary of the royal road linking the Parthian Empire together: ‘Dura… called Europos by the Greeks’ (Isidore, Parth. Stat. 1). Intensively excavated between 1922 and 1937, further sensational discoveries would make the site famous as ‘the Pompeii the Syrian desert.’4 Now known as Dura-Europos, it has provided astonishing insights into the Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman Middle East;5 yet in antiquity nobody ever called it by that name. How and why was this hyphenated form created, when and by whom? And exactly who first saw this place for what it really was, rather than as anonymous ruins? This is a story of historians and archaeologists, but also of soldiers. Identification and initial substantive archaeological exploration of Dura-Europos a century ago also coincided closely with something else: foundation of the Department of Ancient History at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków in 1922. Further, Edward Dąbrowa has himself made significant contributions to the study of Dura and its broader context,6 making this topic doubly fitting for the present centenary volume. The Seleucid foundation (c. 300 BC) which we now know as Dura-Europos was famously explored through excavation campaigns by Franz Cumont (Fig. 2) in 1922– 1923,7 and the major Yale-French Academy expedition masterminded by Mikhail Ros-

    2011. 3   4   5   6   7   1 2

James 2004, xxiii. Yale University Art Gallery, accession number 1931.386: J. H. Breasted 1922c; Cumont 1923a; Heyn Dirven 1999, 326–349; Leriche et al. 2011, 28–30. E.g., Rostovtzeff 1938, 2–5. Baird 2018. Dąbrowa 2020, particularly Dąbrowa 1981. Cumont 1926.

Fig. 1. The ‘Sacrifice of Julius Terentius’ painting, a rendering published by Cumont (Cumont 1923a, plate I)

Fig. 2. Franz Cumont (left) with Mikhail Rostovtzeff in the Mithraeum at Dura-Europos (Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection: Dura image G852)

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tovtzeff, 1928–1937.8 Key discoveries ranged from a remarkably early Christian church and painted synagogue, to a cache of Roman military papyri giving us our most detailed picture of the anatomy and history of any imperial regiment: the unit depicted in the Terentius painting, cohors XX Palmyrenorum. A nominally Greek (or rather, Macedonian) city whose majority population actually comprised Aramaic-speaking Syrians and Mesopotamians, Dura passed from Arsacid to Roman rule in the AD 160s, thereafter accommodating a Roman garrison base supporting aggressions into Parthia: the army of Septimius Severus took the Euphrates route to attack Babylonia in 198.9 Ultimately the city was destroyed by the Sasanian Persians (Iranians), perhaps under Shapur the Great himself, c. AD 256.10 A century later, the army of the ill-fated Julian, last pagan emperor, would pass by its ruins.11 Over subsequent centuries, the twin names of the site were locally forgotten and, while a few references to them remained in surviving classical sources, place and names would only be reconnected as a result of the spadework of the Indian troops in 1920. Forty years after his involvement, Yale field director Clark Hopkins wrote a vivid account of the exploration of the site, entitled The Discovery of Dura-Europos.12 But the city was not so much discovered as identified—or even, in a sense, invented. It was never actually called ‘Dura-Europos’ in antiquity: it was known either as ‘Europos’ or ‘Dura’ (the standard spelling in English publications follows Latin renderings of the name, with French publications using ‘Doura,’ transliterated from Greek orthography). The centenary of the foundation of Dura-Europos studies is a good moment to reflect on their origins, particularly with regard to the questions: exactly how and when did they begin, and who founded them? Rather more than a historiographical footnote, it is a story of some interest at a time of postcolonial reflection and ‘decolonisation’ of historical disciplines. Another specific reason to review these matters is that the established usage ‘DuraEuropos’ has, in the early 21st century, become a minor source of controversy. Pierre Leriche, who has inherited the mantle of Cumont and Rostovtzeff in reviving a major programme of research at the site as director of la Mission Franco-Syrienne d’EuroposDoura or MFSED (which conducted fieldwork 1986–2011), has vehemently attacked the use of ‘Dura-Europos.’ He argues this obscures what he sees as the fundamental Greekness of the city. He therefore insists on the usage ‘Europos-Doura’.13 We will examine this further below.

Names of the Place The city is mentioned a handful of times in surviving ancient sources.14 However, it is only Isidore of Charax, in his Parthian Stations written around the last century BC/first   Rostovtzeff 1938.   Dio 76.9. 10   Leriche 1993; James 2011. 11   Amm. 23.5.8; 24.1.5. 12   Hopkins 1979. 13   Leriche 2019. 14   Cumont 1926, lxv–lxviii. 8 9

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century AD, who tells us that the city had alternative names: ‘Dura… polis of Nikanor, foundation of the Macedonians, called Europos by the Greeks.’15 The latter name was apparently taken from the Macedonian birthplace of the Seleucid king Seleucus I Nikator, reputed founder of what was initially a Hellenistic military colony. ‘Dura,’ Aramaic dialect meaning ‘stronghold,’ was the established placename for centuries before the Macedonians conquered the region.16 According to Ammianus, it was common for cities in Syria to retain alternative Semitic and Greek names (14.8.6: thanks to Ted Kaizer for this reference), something especially well known for Dura’s oasis–city neighbour to the west, Tadmor/Palmyra.17 The position of ‘Dura…called Europos’ in Isidore’s itinerary of the Royal Road linking the Parthian Empire together, locates it on the middle Euphrates, important because there were multiple places called ‘Europos,’ and seemingly another ‘Dura,’ in Hellenistic and Arsacid Southwest Asia. Our earliest surviving literary mention of this ‘Europos’ is in Polybius, who recorded that around 220 BC Molon ‘occupied Parapotamia as far as the town of Europos and Mesopotamia as far as Doura’ (Polyb. 5.48.16), the latter apparently on the Tigris18—but only one place was known by both names.19 Following siege, sack and abandonment in the 250s, of course the city was never completely ‘lost.’ The great ruined Citadel and city walls remained prominent landmarks to the local inhabitants, while the right-bank Euphrates road from Syria to Iraq continued to run through the site (Figs 3–4). However, in subsequent centuries both of the city’s ancient names were forgotten locally, and the ruins became known as Salihiyeh, a name thought to refer to Saladin.20 In Ottoman times, it was also known by the wonderfully evocative Turkish name Qan Qal’esi (modern spelling Kan Kalesi), ‘Castle of Blood.’21 Some Westerners noted the ruins while travelling in the Ottoman Empire.22 Most notably, several visits to the ‘nameless city’ by Sarre between 1898 and 1912 were published together with a plan of the site by Schulz, although this account only appeared in 1920.23 Gertrude Bell was aware from the order of entries in Isidore and Ammianus’ account that ‘Dura Nicanoris’ lay somewhere in this stretch of the Euphrates valley but, passing Salihiyeh on the opposite bank in 1909, she could see only the clifftop citadel and not the wall circuit on the plateau and so deemed it just a ‘castle,’ proposing Dura lay about 25 km downstream at Tell Abu’l Hassan.24 Its true location would only be established during the remaking of the Middle East following fall of the Ottoman Empire. Re-associating the twin ancient names of the city with its physical remains, and establishing the modern terminology, was a multi-step process, involving: • physically revealing textual information at Salihiyeh, incorporating two city names in Greek: Palmyra and ‘Doura’,   Parth. Stat. 1.   Stephens 1937. 17   Kaizer 2017, 31. 18   Cohen 2006, 162, note 4. 19   The ancient sources are collated by Cumont 1926, lxv–lxviii. 20   Bongard-Levin – Litvinenko 2004, 138; Kaizer 2020, xi, note 2. 21   Sarre – Herzfeld 1920, 395. 22   Cumont 1926, ii–iii; Kaizer 2020, xii–xiii. 23   Sarre – Herzfeld 1920, 386–395; Abb. 370–377, and vol. III, Pls. LXXXI–LXXXIII. 24   Bell 1910, 531, 534 and fold-out map. 15 16

Fig. 3. A 1922 French Air Force photograph of Salihiyeh showing the defences of the ancient city,

running from the Euphrates cliffs along the blanking wadi edges and linked by a wall with towers across the plateau. Note: (a) findspot of the paintings; (b) location of the 80th Carnatics’ animal lines in the wadi adjacent to the citadel; (c) British officers’ camp position, and (d) the approximate location of the grave of the ‘young British officer’. (From an unnumbered archive print, Courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection)

Fig. 4. The geographical context of Salihiyeh in early 1920; the current political borders were not yet in place (drawn by Simon James)

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• recording the texts through field sketches, notes and photography, • reading the Greek and, crucially, recognising that it included a place name, Δούρα, which was not immediately recognisable (a necessarily subsequent but, it turns out, substantially delayed step), • hypothesising ‘Doura’ as therefore the presumptive ancient name of the findspot, • making the connection with the surviving literary sources, especially Isidore, and so also becoming aware of the city’s alternative name of ‘Europos’, • confirming the identification by also recovering reference to ‘Europos’ at Salihiyeh, • finally, coining the hyphenated hybrid name. This is, then, also significantly a question of invention. In subsequent 20th-century scholarship, as a result of its spectacular treasures, the city became familiar as ‘D[o]ura-Europos’ in the primarily English- and French-language scholarly literature, or as variations thereupon, with multiple other versions in circulation: e.g. ‘Dura-Europas,’25 or often minus the hyphen, including ‘Dura Europus.’26 However, the hyphen in Dura-Europos is actually as important as the spelling because it indicates that we are dealing with alternative ancient names, not a bipartite one like Spasinou Charax, home city of Isidore. It bears re-emphasising that, in the meagre literary sources and in the much more substantial epigraphic and papyrological records recovered from the site itself, the city was actually only ever known by one name or the other. The hyphenated modern compound ‘Dura-Europos’ was intended to keep both names in view—although this important point might have been clearer to readers, at least in English usage, if it had been rendered as ‘Dura/Europos.’

Discovering Dura, Inventing Dura-Europos The story of the ‘discovery of Dura-Europos’ usually begins with the American archaeologist James Henry Breasted of the University of Chicago, who is commonly credited with first identifying the site as ‘Dura’ (Fig. 5). Yet this only happened because of a prior chain of actions and decisions involving multiple others. Breasted’s single day of fieldwork at Salihiyeh, 4 May 1920, was conducted under the protection of British Indian troops during the Anglo-French colonial carve-up of the Middle East following collapse of Ottoman power at the end of the First World War. All the digging was undertaken by the sepoys; Breasted and his archaeological team just recorded what the soldiers had exposed. The British, employing mainly Indian troops, invaded ‘Mesopotamia’ in 1914, and gradually drove the Ottomans back up the Tigris, taking Baghdad in 1917 and reaching Mosul by the time an Armistice was signed in October 1918. The Euphrates saw much less fighting, but following Ottoman defeat the British seized military control of the corridor between Anah and Deir-ez-Zor, for fear of Turkish or Bolshevik incursions pending

  Stephens 1937.   E.g., Magness 2010.

25 26

Fig. 5. James Henry Breasted in later life (Public Domain image: Smithsonian Institution Archives – SIA2007-0364.jpg)

Fig. 6. Photograph taken by Luckenbill of the Konon/Bithnanaia painting, with one of the Sepoys of the 80th Carnatics probably accidentally captured (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: image N3099 P6659)

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a final peace settlement.27 However, Arab insurgents drove the British out of Deir-ezZor in December 1919.28 Further British withdrawal downriver in May 1920 from Albu Kemal, confirmed as on the Syrian side of the newly-defined border with Iraq, was followed that summer by a massive revolt against British control on the lower Euphrates.29 It was amidst these dramatic events that Dura was identified. In March 1920 a detachment of sepoys was stationed at Salihiyeh, then the most advanced British outpost on the Euphrates. There was sporadic fighting: the first documented excavation (or perhaps rather piling of rubble) inside the walls was a temporary grave for a young British officer, ‘killed with all his party by the Arabs.’30 It was on 30 March that, while digging entrenchments in the far northwestern corner of the ancient enceinte (Fig. 3 (a)), the soldiers accidentally revealed a large wall painting, depicting male and female figures at sacrifice (Fig. 6). Initially referred to by Breasted as the Bithnanaia painting after the central female figure, it is now known as the Konon painting after the figure of the sacrificing priest at left; it was located in the Temple of Bel or of the Palmyrene Gods.31 The following day, having realised that the painting was both accomplished and ancient, Captain Murphy, a veterinary officer who had been at Salihiyeh and witnessed the discovery, reported the news from Brigade headquarters at Albu Kemal to Lt Col Leachman, the regional Political Officer. Leachman forwarded the information to Baghdad, to Civil Commissioner Col A. T. Wilson, head of the British administration in Iraq, who in turn showed it to his advisor on Arab affairs and authority on archaeology, Gertrude Bell.32 They, too, despite the precarious security situation in Iraq, regarded the report as sufficiently important to warrant further investigation. By good fortune Breasted, primarily an Egyptologist but also first Director of the new Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, was in Mesopotamia with a small team conducting an archaeological reconnaissance. On this, the first field expedition of the Institute, Breasted was assisted by Assyriologist Prof D. D. Luckenbill and three PhD students, A. W. Shelton, L. S. Bull and W. F. Edgerton.33 When on 23 April Breasted returned to Baghdad from inspecting sites on the Tigris, Wilson asked him to go to Salihiyeh and record the paintings (it was clear there were more), ‘that they might not perish and be lost to modern knowledge.’34 He agreed to go, and the Army provided a convoy of motorcars to convey the Chicago expedition up river.35 On 2 May the Chicago team arrived in Albu Kemal and next day the officer commanding, ‘General Cunningham,’ accompanied Breasted to Salihiyeh for a first look at the discovery (Fig. 7).36 They found ‘East Indian troops camping … alongside the vast northern castle [the Citadel], under the command of Major Wright-Warren’   Haldane 1922, 20.   Tauber 1991. 29   Haldane 1922, 32–33; Rutledge 2014, 238–391. 30   J. H. Breasted 1924, fig. 52; Fig. 3 (d). 31   J. H. Breasted 1922c; J. H. Breasted 1924, 75–101, pls VIII–XIX; Cumont 1926, 41–72, pls XXXI– XLI. It is today in the National Museum, Damascus. 32   J. H. Breasted 1922c, 178; J. H. Breasted 1924, 52–53. 33   J. H. Breasted 1922b, 2, 65. 34   J. H. Breasted 1922b, 24. 35   J. H. Breasted 1922b, 178–179; J. H. Breasted 1924, 54. 36   J. H. Breasted 1922b, 180; J. H. Breasted 1924, 55. 27 28

Fig. 7. Published as Breasted 1924, fig. 51, this photo, taken by Breasted himself (1922b, fig. 26) was captioned: ‘General Cunningham [Coningham] with officers and part of our expedition at the southwest gate of the Dura fortress…’ Coningham is at left; others to his right are: unidentified member of Chicago expedition; British infantry officer, probably Wright-Warren; British officer in riding breeches, probably Col Leachman; Indian officer of the 80th Carnatics, perhaps Subadar-Major Abdul Majid (Indian Army 1920, 1327); unidentified member of Chicago expedition. Note also the sepoys gazing down from the piquet post on top of the ancient city gate. Photo taken 3 May 1920 (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: image N3293 P6853)

Fig. 8. Looking south-east from the main plateau to the centre of the camp of the 80th Carnatics in Salihiyeh’s inner wadi, below the Hellenistic Citadel at left. Rows of tents flank the animal lines, with a vehicle park beyond. The Euphrates and Mesopotamian plain are visible in the background (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: image N3811 P7371, published as Breasted 1924, Plate III,i)

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Fig. 9. Published as Breasted 1924, fig. 54, this image was captioned ‘British East Indian troops as our disposition for excavating the ground plan of the temple in the ancient fortress of Dura.’ The paintings were actually out of sight behind the officer on the skyline at right. Note again the rubble-built picket post on the skyline, on top of Tower 1 of the Hellenistic defensive circuit. It was while digging additional fire trenches down the slope that the first painting was discovered (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: image N3808 P7368)

(Fig. 8);37 these were sepoys of the 80th Carnatic Infantry.38 Breasted wanted more paintings revealed, so at the General’s instruction Wright-Warren assigned dozens of men for further digging (Fig. 9).39 Breasted then withdrew to spend the night in Albu Kemal. The Chicago party returned early on 4 May, and had just a single day to work at the site, as the soldiers were packing up to withdraw down the Euphrates. On arrival the archaeologists found that the sepoys had already revealed a second, much smaller but also vivid painting, the Terentius sacrifice scene. Breasted and Luckenbill rushed to record both paintings, while the others explored the wider site in the hours available. Besides the Latin label marking the sacrifiant of the military scene as Terentius the tribune, another, Greek, label identified Themes, son of Mocimus, regimental priest; all the other soldiers were anonymous. Further Greek labels accompanied two seated female figures on the lower left. They would be read as ‘the Tyche of Palmyra’ to the left, and to the right the Tyche of ‘Doura.’40 This place clearly was not Palmyra, already     39   40   37 38

J. H. Breasted 1924, 56. J. H. Breasted 1922c, 183. J. H. Breasted 1922b, 28; J. H. Breasted 1922c, 183. J. H. Breasted 1922c, 203; J. H. Breasted 1924, 97–98.

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famous and far to the West. (Subsequently the reason for that city’s goddess of fortune featuring in the painting became clear: it depicted the nominally Palmyrene cohors XX sacrificing in the presence of their national gods and the Fortunes of both their city of origin and their place of stationing.) Labelling of the other Tyche as ‘Doura’ would make this overwhelmingly likely as the ancient identity of Salihiyeh, as was confirmed in subsequent years. Early on 5 May Breasted and his team left the sepoys making final preparations to withdraw down the Euphrates while, accompanied by an armed escort, the Americans headed on up the river valley into the newly proclaimed Arab state. They made it safely to Aleppo and then Beirut, Breasted proceeding to Jerusalem and Cairo before travelling home via London.41 After Breasted’s death his biography was penned by his son Charles, and purported to give more detail of the moment of identification of the city. The book reproduced, ostensibly verbatim, the serial letter home which Breasted was typing more or less day by day during this part of his expedition, including the section typed up at Salihiyeh on the evening of 4 May.42 The account specifically mentions ‘two figures of goddesses of fortune whose names are written in Greek alongside their figures…’ and subsequently continues: ‘The huge fortress [Citadel] with its surrounding ancient city—whose name, Doura, I found in a Greek inscription in one of the paintings…’43. According to this, then, Breasted identified the name of the city on the spot, on the day. On this basis we might fix 4 May 1920 as the exact moment when Dura was identified, and so as the symbolic birthday of Dura studies. Except that it was not. Breasted’s letter still exists in the archives of the Oriental Institute, and reveals a very different story.44 The typescript is covered in later editorial annotations. In composing his father’s biography Charles Breasted evidently made crucial, hagiographical ‘improvements’ to the narrative. From the section typed on 4 May, it is abundantly clear that Breasted had not grasped the significance of the name ‘Doura’ on the painting during that single day of frantic recording which went on until, as daylight was fading, one of the final acts of the Chicago team was to photograph as much of the Terentius painting as they could get in frame in the narrow trench, with their last plate.45 When that evening Breasted briefly described the composition in his letter, he transcribed the Latin text identifying Terentius, and noted the painting also included ‘two figures of oriental goddesses with their names written in Greek alongside the[m]’. He had not yet realised they were not ‘oriental goddesses’ but Greek Tychai, whose Greek labels might therefore identify particular places. Nowhere did he mention ‘Doura’ at all. Some lines later comes the smoking gun: ‘I hope I have enough evidence to identify the place.’ It would turn out that, in the ancient texts he had hastily copied and in part photographed, he did indeed have what he needed. But in reality, the reading of ‘Doura,’ or more specifically Breasted’s realisation that this

  J. H. Breasted 1922b, 41–42.   C. Breasted 1948, 285–288. 43   C. Breasted 1948, 286–287. 44   Transcription: Larson 2010, 225–227. 45   J. H. Breasted 1924, 59–60; unfortunately, a search of the Oriental Institute archive for Breasted’s actual Salihiyeh field notes and sketches was unsuccessful: Anne S. Flannery, pers. comm. 41 42

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might be the ancient name of Salihiyeh, only happened later, indeed long after he had returned to Chicago. Breasted was enormously busy on his return, getting the new Oriental Institute fully up and running; his first priority was producing a report for the University and the Institute’s funder on the expedition as a whole.46 He knew that the Salihiyeh paintings were important discoveries, but was primarily an Egyptologist. To be sure, he had broader interests (he coined the phrase ‘fertile crescent’47), and was a brilliant linguist who had Latin and Greek,48 but the Greco-Roman world was not his forte. It is likely that the Salihiyeh discoveries would have languished unpublished for years, had it not been for Breasted’s growing friendship with Franz Cumont.49 Cumont was in the US early in 1921 and visited Breasted, although they apparently did not discuss the Terentius Tyche figures until an exchange of letters in May.50 Breasted fell seriously ill during the summer, and thereafter was preoccupied with Oriental Institute administration,51 especially publication of the general expedition report; appearing in May 1922, this just noted that the ancient name of Salihiyeh was ‘uncertain.’52 Breasted knew the paintings were important both with regard to art history and in demonstrating a Roman military presence further down the Euphrates than previously known, and Cumont urged him to publish them, but he simply had no time to address the matter until the following year. In summer 1922 Breasted was due to speak in Paris at a conference marking the centenary of Champollion’s decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.53 Cumont would facilitate his also presenting the Salihiyeh discoveries to the Académie Française and publishing them in the new journal Syria.54 Publishing in France also made sense as Salihiyeh now lay within the newly-defined borders of Syria, made de facto a French colonial possession, ostensibly as a protectorate under a mandate from the League of Nations.55 In May 1922 Breasted sent Cumont a 22-page typescript with ‘Photographs for 19 plates, of which 5 will be in color’; it was apparently only while composing this draft in the early months of that year that Breasted tentatively concluded that ‘Doura’ referred to the find spot.56 Cumont replied on 5 June, mostly regarding translating and editing the typescript and arrangements for Breasted’s planned presentation to the Académie but, literally parenthetically, noted that ‘Δούρα est connu par les géographes grecs et répond á la position de Sâliḥiáh’ (thanks to Ted Kaizer for sight of a scan of this letter). Breasted replied: ‘I am delighted that you have found Doura noted by the Greek geographers… My conjecture that Doura might be Salihiyah was a pure guess.’57     48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   46 47

Transcription: Emberling 2010, 121–146; Abt 2011, 250. Abt 2011, 193. Abt 2011, 6. On the ensuing events, see also Kaizer 2020, xv–xviii. Letters from Breasted 26/3/21, CP6675; 6/5/21, CP6703. Letters from Breasted 4/10/21, CP6772; 3/4/22, CP6896, CP6987. J. H. Breasted 1922b, 27. Abt 2011, 277. Kaizer 2020, xviii. Velud 1988; Gelin 2002; Neep 2012. Letter from Breasted 16/5/22, CP6944. Letter from Breasted 20/6/22, CP6987; Kaizer 2020, xvii.

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So, it apparently took the busy and distracted Breasted two years to make the tentative identification of ‘Doura’ as Salihiyeh; and then just weeks later it was actually Cumont, vastly more expert on the Classical world and now armed with transcriptions of the labels on the Terentius painting, who made the crucial connections with the references in Isidore and other ancient authors. Breasted duly presented the discoveries to the Académie Française on 7 July 1922, although the brief published report does not mention ‘Doura.’58 The paintings caused a sensation, and it was clear to the Academy that further work should be undertaken at Salihiyeh, not least because ‘we did not know their date, or their ancient name.’59 However, ‘Doura’ was used extensively in Breasted’s French-language 1922 Syria paper, and in Cumont’s accompanying note additionelle.60 These instances constitute the first academic publication of the site’s ancient name. Here Breasted cited Isidore for the location of ‘Doura’,61 but neither he nor Cumont mentioned that this source records the city had a second name—although they were now aware of it. In his 1924 English-language publication of the finds, The Oriental Forerunners of Byzantine Painting, Breasted introduced the Latinised spelling ‘Dura’ and used this,62 or more generally ‘Dura-Ṣâliḥîyah,’ to describe the city except for a couple of instances of ‘Dura-Europos.’63 However, he completed this publication in the light of Cumont’s further fieldwork at Salihiyeh. Cumont was himself profoundly excited by the discoveries. When it proved impossible for Breasted to conduct further fieldwork at Salihiyeh, in October 1922 Cumont was given the scientific mission by the French Academy, and immediately departed for Syria.64 It will have come as a great satisfaction to Cumont, during his first brief 1922 field season at the site, to read ‘Europaioi’ on a freshly-discovered parchment.65 Placed alongside Breasted’s testimony for ‘Dura,’ this effectively clinched identification with Isidore’s double-named city. Days after closing the excavation, while still in Syria but on his way back to Europe, in a letter to Breasted dated 23 November 1922, Cumont wrote: ‘it is evident—and this is the chief result of our excavations—that the enceinte of Ṣâliḥîyah’ contained a Greek city which can only be Dura-Europos…’66. This letter contains the first attested appearance of the hybrid name. It therefore seems clear not only that Cumont coined ‘Dura-Europos,’ but also that, with the newly-excavated documentation of ‘Europos’ literally in his hands, he devised the hyphenated form actually on site at Salihiyeh in November 1922. So, if we do want to put a date on the birth of Dura studies, then rather than May 4th 1920, it seems that we should consider it to have been in 1922, whether late May/June     60   61   62   63   64   65   66   58 59

J. H. Breasted 1922a; Cumont 1923d, 12. Cumont 1926, ii, transl. SJ. J. H. Breasted 1922c; Cumont 1922. J. H. Breasted 1922c, 203. J. H. Breasted 1924, subtitle and 1. J. H. Breasted 1924, 39; 46, note 1. Cumont 1923d, 12; Cumont 1926, iii–iv; Kaizer 2020, xix–xx. Cumont 1923d, 37; Cumont 1926, 286–296; D.Pg. I = P. Dura 15; Kaizer 2020, xvii, note 31. J. H. Breasted 1924, 3–4; Kaizer 2020, xxii.

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when Breasted suggested to Cumont the equation Dura = Salihiyeh and Cumont supported the identification by reference to the Classical sources, or November that same year when Cumont confirmed through a new archaeologically-recovered text that Salihiyeh/ Dura also equated to Europos—and coined the now-familiar hyphenated name. Early in 1923 Cumont reported his additional discoveries to the French Academy, notably recovery of the name Europos confirming the identification with Isidore’s account, but he did not use the hybrid name in his publication.67 ‘Doura-Europos’ first appeared in print in other publications of 1923: in his Syria paper on the new excavations,68 and a paper on the Terentius painting.69 In 1924 he placed it in the title of an article,70 and two years later in that of his great monograph on the site, Fouilles de Doura-Europos 1922–3.71 By the time Rostovtzeff launched the Yale/French Academy expedition towards the end of the 1920s, ‘Dura-Europos’ was the established scholarly name for the ancient city, thereafter used routinely by the Yale expedition (as normally abbreviated) in their publications. It remains the accepted name although, as we have seen, this has recently been challenged by Leriche (on which, more below). This last point begs the question: why did Cumont choose the order ‘Doura-Europos,’ and not the converse? It is not clear that he gave it much thought, or would have considered it greatly mattered. It seems he simply followed the order given in our only ancient source mentioning both names together: Isidore’s ‘Dura…[also] called Europos’— which, as Ted Kaizer points out, also happened to be the order of recovery of the names (pers. comm.). (‘Dura-Europos’ is also easier to pronounce, and at least to Anglophone ears is more euphonious, than ‘Europos-Dura’.)

Placename Controversies Leriche’s reasons for advocating a switch to ‘Europos-D[o]ura’ emphasise that the current habit of foregrounding the name ‘Dura’ obscures the Hellenistic heritage of the site, and also unduly overemphasises its last, Roman-dominated period, during which ‘Dura’ became more prominent in use in surviving records.72 He frames this as inappropriate scholarly favouring of Roman imperialism over Hellenising culture: ‘the tendency is to erase the Greco-Macedonian aspect to the benefit of romanité.’73 However, if ‘Europos’ is indeed being obscured or neglected, surely the problem arises from routine abbreviation of ‘Dura-Europos’ to ‘Dura,’ rather than the composite name. The proposal to adopt ‘Europos-D(o)ura’ has not generally been accepted outside the publications of MFSED, and has been criticised as unnecessary and unwarranted.74 It is     69   70   71   72   73   74   67 68

Cumont 1923d, 37. Cumont 1923b, 54 = Praet et al. 2020, no. 5, 63. Cumont 1923a, colour plate caption. Cumont 1924 = Praet et al. 2020, no. 17. Cumont 1926. Leriche 2019. Leriche 2019, 646; transl. SJ. Kaizer 2017, 30; Kaizer 2020, XI, note 2.

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a cure worse than the disease, potentially doubling the existing confusion of spellings noted above. This is actively counterproductive, hindering online searches and so, not least, making MFSED research harder to find. Beyond mere practicalities, there are academic counterarguments to Leriche’s concern to prioritise the Hellenising identity of the city encapsulated in ‘Europos,’ both in general, and in particular with regard to its Roman period, during which both toponyms could occur in the same document.75 Others’ considered decisions to stick with the established ‘Dura-Europos’ need have nothing to do with Roman partisanship—or laziness, or inertia. It may be simple pragmatism: as argued above, it is the established term, why complicate things? For myself, I continue to favour ‘Dura-Europos’ for reasons having nothing to do with Roman imperialism; quite the opposite. Rather, for me the established formulation foregrounds the Aramaic-speaking, Syro-Mesopotamian cultural identity of the ancient city. My approach to research, which focuses primarily on the Roman era, seeks to take a critical stance informed by postcolonial perspectives. This long since led me to conclude that a central problem in the study of the city has rather been excessive focus on Europos and the Europaioi—that is, on the Hellenistic constitutional form of the city, and the outward Greekness (or more accurately, ‘Macedonian-ness’) of its dominant ruling class—at the expense of attention to the majority of the population. Rostovtzeff and other early investigators regarded the Hellenism of the town and its elite as the primary interest and importance of the site; the Aramaic-speaking majority were of lesser sociopolitical account.76 Leriche’s continuing advocacy of the primary importance of Hellenism in Asia looks increasingly anomalous in a postcolonial world. Yet I believe he does have a point about ‘Europos’: in seeking to take a postcolonial stance, it certainly remains important not to overcompensate, and so to underplay the city’s Hellenistic identity, which was maintained and indeed celebrated to the end of the Roman period. For example, the soldiers of the garrison seemingly came to regard themselves, and became widely known in the Roman armies, as ‘the Europaioi.’77 It is appropriate, then, to try always to keep both names in view, which in other current work I am attempting to do by using ‘Europos’ alongside ‘Dura,’ as a synonym where context allows, or as preference where it is appropriate. However, especially for its Arsacid and Roman eras, Dura’s majority indigenous Syro-Mesopotamian character was at least as important as its Hellenistic heritage; even members of the ostensibly Greco-Macedonian elite had alternate Greek and Semitic names, just as their city did.78 And if the settlement as we see it began with imposition of a Seleucid phrourion (garrison-station79) given the Macedonian name Europos, the place was called Dura first.80   Welles et al. 1959; P. Dura 32.   E.g.. Welles 1951, 251, 262–264; on Rostovtzeff’s views regarding Greek cultural superiority, see Shaw 1992, 226; the Jewish and Christian communities, with their powerful resonances in the modern Western world, also received a great deal of attention but were seen as late and rather separate introductions. 77   James 2019, 312–313. 78   Pollard 2007. 79   Leriche 1997, 193–198. 80   Stephens 1937. 75 76

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The Soldiers of Dura-Europos/Salihiyeh So far, focus has been on the academics who first interpreted the texts revealed at the site and then, relating them to existing knowledge, laid the foundations for current scholarship and debates on Dura-Europos, from its very name to its nature and significance. But none of these pioneering figures actually undertook any of the physical digging themselves. The critical evidence underpinning the small academic industry of Dura studies was physically disinterred between the World Wars by people who remain largely anonymous in the published record. While the workforce of the later Yale expedition comprised hundreds of Syrian civilians,81 the early 1920s fieldwork which initially revealed the twin ancient names of the city was undertaken by soldiers of the British and French empires. Further, these troops worked mostly without direct archaeological supervision. Like its ancient foundation and destruction, the modern recovery of Dura-Europos began as, in effect, a series of military operations. So, to complete our picture of the beginnings of Dura-Europos studies, what can we actually say about the soldiers who initiated its physical exploration? It is a paradox that, in terms of both text and depictions, there is more information in the current published record about the third-century Roman milites depicted in the ‘sacrifice of Terentius’ scene than about the twentieth-century soldiers who actually revealed them, despite their being so much closer to us in time. The Roman Soldiers in the Terentius Painting The two labels in the Terentius sacrifice scene identifying mortal individuals allow us to link the painting to a substantial body of textual data, which reveals the unit portrayed as cohors XX Palmyrenorum, and also dates the painting to the later 230s. The evidence relating to this regiment takes up a large portion of the Final Report on the Dura papyri: its organisation, its officers and men specified by name, and their activities, including daily reports, strength rosters, and other documents giving us glimpses of a range of matters from diplomatic, legal and disciplinary issues to purchases of grain and supply of new horses.82 However, Julius Terentius himself is not mentioned in any of the surviving papyri. The critical connection of his depiction, and of the painting as a whole, to additional information came from the other soldier label on the painting: ‘Themes son of Mocimus, priest.’ He was recorded, as sacerdos, in a series of daily reports of cohors XX Palmyrenorum dated to late May AD 239, where he is listed among those on watch duty at the regimental standards.83 This both identified the unit depicted, and suggested close dating of the painting.

  Baird 2011; Baird 2018, 42, 50–58.   Welles et al. 1959. 83   P. Dura 89: 1.2, 9. 81 82

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Terentius is nevertheless recorded epigraphically, as his epitaph was recovered. This reveals that he died at Dura while on active service, and was buried there by his wife Aurelia Arria.84 It was suggested that he was a casualty of an attested Sasanian attack on 30 April 239;85 however, the epitaph does not specify that he was killed, just that he died.86 Still, it remains likely that his tenure as tribune was indeed in the later 230s, between other attested commanders.87 We can suggest names for a few other figures in the painting. The standard bearer may be Ulpius Marianus, who appears as the senior of three signiferi on watch alongside Themes in P. Dura 89; the others were Ulpius Silvanus and Flavius Demetrius. Another figure stands out in the front rank of the mass of milites, because like Terentius he wears a white cloak rather than the yellow-brown one of the bulk of the soldiers, and sports prominent swastikas on his tunic; he is suggested to be a centurion or cavalry decurion. The figure next to Themes also seems to wear a white cloak, and is the only one holding a T-shaped staff; he too is apparently an officer. Around AD 240 the unit’s six centurions were, in order of descending seniority, Achaeus, Felix, Germanus, Heliodorus, Naso and Priscus.88 The five cavalry decurions of the same period were Cocceius, Antiochus, Apollonius, Paulinus and Romullus.89

French and French Colonial Soldiers at Salihiyeh With regard to the soldiers who first excavated Salihiyeh, Cumont was certainly assiduous in crediting the military assistance he received for his expeditions of 1922 and 1923, dedicating his 1926 volume to the officers, NCOs and soldiers of France’s Armée du Levant. He also meticulously named the officers involved, and identified the contingents of troops. At the time, as he noted, archaeological exploration in this relatively remote and insecure area could only be undertaken with at least the protection and logistical assistance of the military.90 Once the French Academy resolved to follow up Breasted’s reported discovery with further exploration of the site, a request sent to General Gourand, haute commissaire in Syria, resulted in orders for General de Lamothe, commander at Aleppo, to dispatch troops to Salihiyeh. Cumont recorded that, under commandant (Major) Georges Hamel, these comprised a company of the 19e régiment de tirailleurs algériens and another of the 4th Regiment of the Foreign Legion with some Moroccan spahis (cavalry), totalling 200 men.91 In practice the first substantial excavations at Salihiyeh, which started in early October 1922, were an entirely military operation conducted by these men. Their work was overseen by commandant Eugene Rènard (head   Welles 1941; Rostovtzeff et al. 1944, 176–185, no. 939; James 2019, 230, 254.   Baur et al. 1933, 112–114, no. 233; Welles et al. 1959, 283 and note 6. 86   David Thomas, pers. comm. 87   Welles et al. 1959, 27–28. 88   Welles et al. 1959, 28, fig. 3: P. Dura 107. 89   Welles et al. 1959, 30, fig. 4: P. Dura 107. 90   Cumont 1926, iii. 91   Cumont 1923d, 15; Cumont 1926, iii, and note 4; however, Gelin, citing archival documents, identifies the Foreign Legionnaires as being la compagnie Beyer of the 1st Regiment: Gelin 1997, 238, note 86. 84 85

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of military intelligence at Deir92). Rènard presented a report on a month’s excavation already undertaken to Cumont on his arrival, which was not until 9 November.93 He acknowledged the value of Rènard’s report, and drew on it heavily.94 Cumont himself was actually at the site for little more than the last of six weeks of excavation.95 When the French Academy renewed Cumont’s mission in 1923,96 he was again provided with troops as both workforce and security presence: the 15th Company of the 4th Regiment of the Foreign Legion (it is unclear if these were the same men as the previous year), commanded by Captain Jumaincourt and Lieutenant Passedat.97 This season Cumont was present throughout, from 3 October to 7 November. A further, smaller-scale but much longer expedition, entirely military with no archaeological supervision at all, took place in 1924. It was conducted by a dozen ‘Syrian legionnaires’ (the Syrian Legion being recruited by the mandate authorities mostly from Syrian minority communities.98 Under Sergeant Dachtus of the 3e regiment mixte,99 they excavated from 12 May to 1 November, a report on their discoveries being made by Lieutenant Delaplanche to Cumont although, except for Delaplanche producing the first reasonably accurate archaeological plan of the site,100 these inexpert activities were more destructive than illuminating.101 Work was suspended at Dura during 1925 and 1926 due to the ‘troubled state of Syria,’102 by which Cumont meant the Great Syrian Revolt, which was still being stamped out in 1927.103 The Yale expedition would not have been able to start earlier than it did, i.e. 1928.104 Cumont’s publication did not include any photographs of his workforce as such, or even ‘working shots’ of excavations underway. He did employ single soldiers as photographic scales, mostly distant figures against large architectural subjects, although some, photographed with large objects such as storage vessels or an altar, are potentially identifiable individuals (Fig. 10). The closest to a photograph of soldiers actually digging is one showing five men standing in the part-excavated Temple of Artemis.105 However, we have no idea who any of these men were. Unless they are buried deep in French state archives then, apart from their officers, the names of the colonial soldiers who wielded their spades at Dura are lost to history, with the single exception of Sgt Dachtus. This stands in paradoxical contrast to our knowledge of cohors XX, for which we have extensive lists of names and other infor-

    94   95   96   97   98   99  

Gelin 1997, 238, note 88. Cumont 1923c = Praet et al. 2020, no. 4. Cumont 1926, iii–iv. Cumont 1923d, v, 14–16. Cumont 1926, v; Kaizer 2020, xxviii. Cumont 1926, vi, and note 1. Mizrahi 2003, 107, 111–115. Cumont 1925, 70; Kaizer 2020, 241. 100   Gelin 1997, 238–239, and fig. 6. 101   Cumont 1926, ix, and appendix 477–481; Kaizer 2020, xxix. 102   Cumont 1926, 477. 103   Provence 2005. 104   Bongard-Levin – Litvinenko 2004. 105   Cumont 1926, plate LXXIII,1. 92 93

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Fig. 10. Anonymous soldiers of the Armée du Levant detailed to dig at Salihiyeh, appearing as scales in Cumont’s photos: (a) probably a Foreign Legionniare of the 4e régiment (Cumont 1926, plate XCV.1); (b) probably a colonial infantryman, so one of the 19e régiment de tirailleurs algériens (Cumont 1926, plate XC.1); (c) and (d) men whose boots suggest cavalry troopers, so Moroccan spahis (from unnumbered Cumont prints, courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery Dura-Europos Fig.

mation about ordinary soldiers, mainly from the regimental rolls recovered by the Yale expedition (e.g., P. Dura 100, 101). Nevertheless, in the names of the French colonial military formations deployed to dig at Salihiyeh there are intriguing echoes of the Roman garrison of the city, which the soldiers’ spades were starting to reveal. Third-century Dura was home to some Roman legionaries, and especially the provincial auxiliarii of cohors XX Palmyrenorum, an unusually high unit numeral resonating with the 19e régiment de tirailleurs algériens. Some of Dura’s early military excavators were also called troupes auxiliaries, the formal designation for the class of soldiers raised in Syria by the Mandate authorities as part of France’s Armée du Levant.106 The specific formation to which these troupes auxiliaries belonged was, as we have seen, la Legion Syrienne. And there were other legionnaires, the regular French Army troops of multinational origin serving in the Foreign Legion, a corps which continues today. These conscious references to Imperial Roman military prestige are a part of French martial culture going back at least to the eagle standards of Napoleon’s armies, a tradition which was carried—in a sense, carried back again after many centuries—to Syria in 1920. Rather remarkably, there are actually still ‘legions’ fighting in Syria at the time of writing: the anti-Assad Syrian National Army uses this   Mizrahi 2003, 107, 112; Commins – Lesch 2014, 327.

106

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name for its combat formations,107 presumably representing regional continuity of the French colonial military heritage—but still echoing Rome’s armies too.

British and British Colonial Soldiers at Salihiyeh But what of the British and Indian troops who, in 1920, initially revealed the true antiquity of the site, and also exposed the first evidence of the city’s Semitic name and of its Roman military heritage? Breasted’s accounts provide valuable testimony although, as for Cumont’s information on the French colonial soldiers who followed them, these documents curiously mirror the Terentius-painting half of the ‘strange meeting,’ in that they identify the officers involved by name, provide images of some of them, and allow us to identify the unit to which the ordinary soldiers who actually revealed the paintings belonged—yet the rank-and-file sepoys remain individually anonymous. Just as the labels identifying the tribune and Themes the priest in the Terentius scene allow us to link the soldiers depicted with surviving records of cohors XX Palmyrenorum, so the photographs and captions in Breasted’s publications allow us to make links with both his writings and the contemporary publications such as the Quarterly Indian Army List, to say something more about the men who literally brought Bithnanaia, Konon, Terentius, Mocimus and others to light. Of the individuals named by Breasted, we know least about Captain Murphy, the officer who took the trouble to alert higher authority of the accidental archaeological discovery. Breasted gives his name as ‘M.C. Murphy,’108 but no such named veterinary officer appears in the British Army List for the period; he was probably Michael Aloysius Murphy, made Royal Army Veterinary Corps captain in July 1919.109 However, nothing more is currently known about him. Breasted gave particular credit to the commander of British forces in the area, ‘General Cunningham [sic]… [because] to his interest in the wall paintings it was largely due that we had the opportunity of studying and recording them...’110. This was in fact Brigadier General Frank Evelyn Coningham, commanding 51st Indian Infantry Brigade. It was Lt Col Gerard Evelyn Leachman, Political Officer for the region, who alerted Baghdad about the paintings, and who negotiated the Chicago expedition’s safe conduct across the insecure frontier into the new Syrian Arab state after their work at Salihiyeh (Fig. 11). He was a particularly important figure at the time. Probably the most experienced, influential and ruthless Political Officer in Mesopotamia, he would be killed in a confrontation with Iraqi Arabs the following August.111 With regard to the soldiers actually stationed at Salihiyeh when Breasted’s party arrived, the Indian Army List for the period reveals Christopher Thomas Wright-Warren to have been a Captain acting as Major, and as temporary second in command, of the 1st     109   110   111   107 108

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights 2019. J. H. Breasted 1924, 53. British Army 1920, 1091. J. H. Breasted 1924, fig. 51 caption. Haldane 1922, 170–171; Bray 1936; Townshend 2010, 59; Rutledge 2014, 102–103, 221–222.

Fig. 11. The only known formal portrait of Gerard Leachman (public domain)

Fig. 12. Collar badge of a sepoy of the 126th Baluchistan Infantry; surface find from Dura-Europos (photo Simon James)

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Battalion, 80th Carnatic Infantry. Having joined the regiment in 1911 he was at the time its longest-serving officer, but others had been promoted over him, suggesting that he was a steady but not outstanding soldier.112 The 1/80th Carnatic Infantry comprised ‘2 companies of Madrasi Musulmans, 1 of Tamils, 1 of Paraiyans and Christians,’ from the eastern coastal districts of South India.113 In Mesopotamia since 1917, the 80th Carnatics had been employed, sometimes in dispersed detachments, to protect the British Indian Army’s long and vulnerable lines of river, road and rail communication between the port of Basra on the Persian Gulf and its front line against the Ottomans,114 as this was pushed northwards up the Tigris past Baghdad, eventually reaching Mosul.115 Apparently only part of the battalion was at Salihiyeh in May 1920. Breasted’s accounts and photos of their camp, especially Fig. 8, suggest that at the time they were there in no more than company strength. They were bivouacked with their attached transport, which except for a few horses belonging to officers or despatch riders mostly comprised mules as pack animals, with light carts and a horse ambulance also visible. However, as for the Terentius painting and Cumont’s accounts, we cannot put names to any of the ordinary Indian soldiers and non-commissioned officers in the Breasted expedition photos like Fig. 9. One image in particular partly echoes the composition of the Terentius scene: Fig. 7 has a row of prominent foreground figures, comprising officers and archaeologists some of whom are named in the caption, with others we can tentatively identify—while in a fortified post on top of the Palmyrene Gate behind them, rows of anonymous faces of ordinary soldiers gaze down. We can now start to say, then, something of the other half of the ‘strange meeting’ of 4 May 1920, between a Roman numerus and a British Indian regiment which somewhat mirrored each other across the centuries; for example, both units were about a thousand strong. Not only did the 80th Carnatics dig up the temple at the north-western corner of the city where cohors XX had once worshipped, their main camp had also been unwittingly established on the campus or exercise ground of the Roman garrison, and they had set up their tents over two more military temples which flanked it (Figs 3 (b), 8). Wright-Warren, and presumably the other British and Indian officers, had bivouacked on the plateau to the north, next to a palatial official Roman residence likely occupied by generals and even visited by emperors—a position also close to the site of the Roman garrison headquarters (Fig. 3 (c)116). However, if from Breasted we can build some impression of the presence of the 80th Carnatics, it is still not the complete picture of this, the last known military garrison at Salihiyeh. Cohors XX Palmyrenorum was long the major garrison element of Roman Dura, but initially alongside other auxiliaries, and later with some legionaries.117 Similarly, other elements of British imperial forces were represented at Salihiyeh in 1920, including Capt Murphy, although specialists such as officers of the RAVC and medical     114   115   116   117   112 113

Indian Army 1920, 1327. Indian Army 1920, 1327. Moberly 1926, 414; Moberly 1927, 342, 376, 393. Townshend 2010; Rutledge 2014. J. H. Breasted 1924, fig. 52. James 2019, 241–250.

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personnel were widely dispersed and attached to units. But one small yet important further piece of evidence, this time archaeological—a single artefact—opens up an entire additional dimension to the story. A metal object found on the surface at Dura came into the possession of MFSED, and I examined it on site in 2001 (Fig. 12). This is a brass collar badge of another Indian Army regiment, the 126th Baluchistan Infantry, of a type in use from 1903 until 1922 (identified from the photograph by Alan Jeffreys, curator at the Imperial War Museum, London, pers. comm., 2006). How did it get to Dura? Like the 1/80th, the 126th had also been deployed on line-of-communication duties in Mesopotamia in 1917–1918,118 sometimes divided into detachments,119 and likely continued in this role thereafter. Had it, too, been deployed to Salihiyeh? This raises the possibility that the story of the British imperial presence there may have been longer and/or more complex than the presence of a detachment of the 80th Carnatics from late March to early May 1920. There is also the fundamental question of why there was still a British military outpost at Salihiyeh in the spring of 1920 at all, when the area was about to come under French colonial rule? Further research currently underway indicates that this is an important—and grim—story in its own right, featuring Col Leachman in particular. It will be examined in a follow-up publication.120

“Let us sleep now” Wilfred Owen’s haunting poem ‘Strange Meeting’ ends with the encountered dead saying to the narrator, “Let us sleep now.” And so today sleep the Syro-Roman milites commemorated in the Terentius painting, the sepoys who brought them back to light, and the British officers and American archaeologists who first brought them to wider attention; but they, and the French officers and colonial soldiers who expanded exploration of the site under Franz Cumont, should also all be remembered, as part of the story of Dura-Europos/Salihiyeh.

Coda: The British Indian Army’s Second Visit to Salihiyeh, 1941 The 80th Carnatics in May 1920 were not the last British Indian troops to come to Salihiyeh, if only in passing. In summer 1941 British-led forces and Free French formations invaded Vichy-French-controlled Syria to deny it to Nazi Germany. As they had in 1918, some British units entered Syria along the Euphrates road, taking Albu Kemal and driving towards the important communications junction at Deir-ez-Zor.121 These comprised

    120   121   118 119

Moberly 1927, 17, note 396. Moberly 1926, 360, 377. James (forthcoming). Playfair 1956, 217.

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21st Indian Brigade Group of 10th Indian Division, from which, on 1 July 1941, the 2nd Battalion, 10th Battalion Gurkha Rifles advanced from Albu Kemal up the Euphrates.122 The road took the advancing Gurkhas through the middle of Salihiyeh/Dura-Europos, and past the abandoned trenches and vacant expedition house of the recently ended Yale/French Academy project. The Gurkhas’ Divisional commander, who followed them along the road through the ruined city during the ensuing night, was Major General William Slim, though in his account he does not mention, and perhaps could not see, the ancient city as he was driven through it in the dark.123 Slim was on his way to oversee the battle for Deir-ez-Zor, one of a series of bold but meticulously planned victories which, several years later, would see him lead a million men driving the Japanese from India and Burma. Becoming Field Marshall Sir William Slim, he was arguably the greatest British army commander of all time. He is therefore another famous name to place among the list of celebrated generals who led armies through Dura-Europos, alongside Septimius Severus, probably Shapur I, and Julian. However, Slim himself, a man of humble origins whose career was focused on Britain’s Indian Army, was a leader acutely aware that the victories he devised depended on the men from so many ethnicities under his command. They returned the esteem by calling him ‘Uncle Bill,’ appreciating that he valued so highly the ordinary Indian sepoys and British soldiers who did the fighting—and who often also wielded spades as part of their service, building roads to move men and supplies, and the fortifications at Kohima and Imphal against which the Japanese imperial armies would ultimately break in 1944. Slim understood, like Corbulo,124 that success in war could be won with the pickaxe as much as the sword; at Salihiyeh in 1920, sepoys ‘digging in’ had led to a particularly strange and unexpected meeting which, in turn, would result in discovery of an astonishing treasure-trove of evidence for life in pre-Islamic Syria and Mesopotamia.

Acknowledgements My grateful thanks to Edward Dąbrowa for his kind invitation to contribute to the centenary volume, and to Ted Kaizer for invaluable comments, information, and assistance with the Breasted-Cumont correspondence. Thanks also to Alan Jeffreys of the Imperial War Museum for identification of the Baluchi collar badge, David Thomas for his reading of the Terentius epitaph, and Jen Baird for assistance with Fig. 3. I am also very grateful to Anne S. Flannery of the Oriental Institute, Chicago, for kindly searching the archive for Breasted’s Salihiyeh site records for me in the midst of the pandemic shutdown.

  MacKenzie 1951, 121–125.   Slim 1959, 158–159. 124   Frontinus, Stratagems 4.7.2. 122 123

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Simon James

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