Sun Quan launches the last major assault of his reign against Wei in 241, in light of Cao Rui's death in 239, but he rejects a strategy offered by Yin Zha to attack Wei in a coordinated effort with Shu on four different fronts, and the campaign ends in failure.

The death of the crown prince Sun Deng later in 241 leaves open the issue of succession and appears to mark the start of a precipitous decline in Sun Quan's mental health.

Jiang Wan is a capable administrator, and he continues Zhuge Liang's domestic policies, leaving the government largely efficient.

He is also known for his tolerance of dissension and his humility.

Not having much military aptitude, however, he had soon abandoned Zhuge Liang's policy of waging war against Wei, and indeed in 241 withdraws most of the troops from the important border city of Hanzhong to Fu County (in present-day Mianyang, Sichuan).

From this point on, Shu is generally in a defensive posture and no longer poses a threat to Wei.

(This is in fact misinterpreted by many Wu officials as a sign that Shu is abandoning the alliance and entering into a treaty with Wei, but is read correctly by Wu's emperor Sun Quan as merely a sign of weakness, not an abandonment of the alliance.)

Jiang Wan, growing ill in 243, transfers most of his authority to Fei Yi and Fei's assistant Dong Yun.

Timesitheus, having started his career under the Severan dynasty emperor Elagabalus, has held a number of important provincial postings.

Adept at finances, he had served in Spain as a Promagistrate.

Between 218-222, the emperor had promoted him and appointed him as Procurator of Arabia and from 220 he became a Prefect of the Cohorts and had held procuratorships in Syria, Palestine, Bithynia, Pontus, Paphlagonia, Asia, Germania Inferior, Gallia Belgica, Gallia Aquitania and Gallia Lugdunensis, proving to be an able and efficient official.

In 241, Gordian III, seeking a responsible person to serve as Praetorian Prefect and head of the Praetorian Guard, picks Timesitheus and appoints him to the position.

Timesitheus is to be an important, responsible and prominent figure in the emperor’s reign and through his years of political experience is able to assist Gordian and Gordian’s mother Antonia Gordiana in administering the Roman Empire.

An example of Timesitheus’ suitability in his position is that in May 241, Timesitheus had arranged with Gordian to marry his daughter Tranquillina.

The wife of Timesitheus is unknown.

His daughter becomes a Roman Empress and her marriage to the young Gordian will prove to be a very happy (albeit short-lived) union.

Timesitheus, proving to be a figure that will work with the emperor, not against him, orders the improvements of the empire’s borders in Africa.

The Prefect begins to organize war on Persia, whose King Shapur I had recently invaded Roman Mesopotamia and captured Nisibis and Carrhae.

Mani, born near Seleucia-Ctesiphon, perhaps in the town Mardinu in the Babylonian district of Nahr Kutha, according to other accounts in the town Abrumya, is a Persian of noble descent and a Mithra initiate who has studied early Christian heresies.

Mani's father Pātik, a native of Ecbatana (modern Hamadan, Iran), is a member of the Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites (a subgroup of the Gnostic Ebionites).

His mother, whose name is reported variously, among others Mariam, is of Parthian descent (from "the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan" (Sundermann, Werner (2009), Mani, the founder of the religion of Manicheism in the third century CE, "...his mother was from the house Jinsajian, explained by Henning as the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan".)

At ages twelve and twenty-four, Mani had visionary experiences of a heavenly twin of his, calling him to leave his father's sect and teach the true message of Christ.

In 240–41, Mani travels to "India" (i.e.

to the Sakhas, Hindu theological schools that specializes in learning certain Vedic texts, in modern-day Afghanistan), where he had probably been influenced by Greco-Buddhism.

Returning in 242, he joins the court of Shapur I, to whom he dedicates his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan.

Shapur is not converted to Manichaeanism and remains Zoroastrian.

Mani embarks on a career as an itinerant preacher, declaring himself the “Messenger of Truth,” the Paraclete promised by Jesus.

Traveling throughout the Persian empire, he teaches that salvation requires liberation of the seed of light, the soul, from the material darkness which envelops and binds it, and that this can be achieved through ascetic practices and strict celibacy.

Those who seek perfection must set three “seals” on their lives: on the mouth, to speak only truth and to abstain from meat or impure food of any kind; on the hands, to refrain from war, killing, or injuring life; on the breast, to render impossible the works of the flesh.

These rules apply only to the elect or pure; a less stringent code is described for hearers.

The destiny of the imperfect is continual rebirth in a world of material bodies.

The fifth-century Cologne Mani-Codex and other evidence discovered in the twentieth century establishes Mani as a historical individual.

Sassanid ruler Ardashir I, a king of kings, in a complete reversal of the Parthian form of governance, has centralized power in his hands.

Ardashir is an energetic king, responsible for the resurgence not just of Persia but of Iranian-speaking peoples as a unified nation (ethnous as it appears in the Greek version of his successor's inscription on the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht), the strengthening of Zoroastrianism, and the establishment of a dynasty that will endure for four centuries.

Ardashir has constructed massive building projects in Fars province as a proclamation of imperial grandeur.

While his campaigns against Rome have met with only limited success, he has achieved more against them than the Parthians had done in many decades and has prepared the way for the substantial successes his son and successor Shapur I, who accedes to the throne first as co-ruler and then sole ruler following his father’s death in 242, will enjoy against the same enemy.

Persian cavalry and infantry forces, having invaded and seized most of Syria, now threaten the Roman provincial capital of Antioch.

Roman emperor Gordianus III arrives in Syria in 242 with his father-in-law, the capable general Gaius Furius Sabinus Aquila Timesithesus, at the head of a large army.

Gordian III, setting out in 242 with a huge army bolstered by Goths and Germans, accompanies his new father-in-law, the prefect Timesitheus, on a campaign against the Persians.

Timesitheus defeats the Persians at the Battle of Resaena in 243 and expels them from Roman territory, …

…regaining Nisibis and …