Julian's Persian Expedition

Date: March 5, 363 • Location: Antakya, Turkey

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 363.

Roman–Persian Wars: Roman emperor Julian and his army set out from Antioch to attack the Sasanian Empire.

The Roman–Persian wars, also called the Roman–Iranian wars, took place between the Roman states and the Iranian empires, beginning with the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire in 54 BC and ending with the Byzantine and the Sasanian empires 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 tribes, 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. The Arab-Muslim offensives resulted in the collapse of the Sasanian Empire and largely confined the Byzantine Empire to Anatolia and southeastern Europe for the ensuing Arab–Byzantine wars.