The focus of this paper is on the Middle Euphrates: Dura-Europos as its best-known urban settlement; a series of villages known mostly from two papyrological dossiers situated along the river; and the military stations on the Euphrates. The paper asks questions about the impact (or lack of it) of the culture of Palmyra on the region's communities. It is argued that Dura-Europos remains our best case study for social and religious life in a Near Eastern small town under the Roman empire, and that the only evidence that actually makes the town look potentially ‘untypical’ is the idiosyncratic source material related to its Palmyrene inhabitants. The paper also questions the traditional periodization of Dura's history and puts forward the hypothesis that at two points during the so-called ‘Parthian phase’ Palmyrenes took advantage of a power vacuum along the Middle Euphrates and became the dominant military factor in the region.

中文翻译：

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帝国，社区和文化在中等偏远地区。杜伦斯，巴利米伦，村民和士兵

本文的重点是中幼发拉底河：作为最著名的城市聚居地杜拉-欧罗波斯；沿河而建的一系列村庄，主要由两个古生物学档案资料所知；和幼发拉底河上的军事站。该论文提出有关巴尔米拉文化对该地区社区的影响（或缺乏影响）的问题。有人认为，Dura-Europos仍然是我们在罗马帝国统治下的一个近东小镇上进行社会和宗教生活的最佳案例研究，而实际上使该小镇看起来可能“不典型”的唯一证据是与它的Palmyrene居民。本文还质疑杜拉传统的分期