far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, which | decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He exdisplays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship for the sophist of Antioch. His design of in m Hierapolis, situate almost on the vading Persia, banks of the Euphrates,' had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of boats, which was previously constructed. If the inclinations of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might have wasted the active and important season of the year in the circus of Samosata, or in the churches of Edessa. But as the warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhæ," a very ancient city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in completing the immense preparations for the Persian war. The secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast; but as Carrhæ is the point of separation of the two great roads, he could no longer conceal, whether it was his design to attack the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon about the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the Persian monarchy. The success of this well-❘ concerted plan depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of the Romans. But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, king of Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more Disaffection of the king of Armenia. k Julian, epist. xxvii. p. 399–402. 1 I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to M. d'Anville, for his recent geography of the Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.) which particularly illustrates the expedition of Julian. m There are three passages within a few miles of each other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Membigz, or Hierapolis, at the distance of four parasangs from the city. n Haran, or Carrha, was the ancient residence of the Sabæans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.) a work from which I have obtained much oriental know. ledge, concerning the ancient and modern geography of Syria and the adjacent countries. • See Xenophon. Cyropæd. 1. iii. p. 189. edit. Hutchinson. Artavas | pressed a pious attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the præfect Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of a barbarian king.a Tiranus professed the christian religion; he reigned over a nation of christians; and he was restrained, by every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the imperial mandates' awakened the secret indignation of a prince, who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the east, and the rivals of the Roman power. Military The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to deceive the preparations. spies, and to divert the attention, of Sapor. The legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the level and naked plain of Carrhæ; and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers of Circesium, the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Cæsars had ever led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and infantry, of Romans and barbarians, had been selected from the different provinces; and a just pre-eminence of loyalty and valour was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person of their beloved prince. A formidable body of Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to the imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refused the payment of the accusdes might have supplied Mark Antony with 16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner. (Plutarch, in M. Antonio, tom. v. p. 117.) P Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. 1. iii. c. 11. p. 242.) fixes his accession (A. D. 354.) to the 17th year of Constantius. q Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856.) says, in general terms, that Constantius gave his brother's widow Tois Bapßapois, an expres sion more suitable to a Roman than a christian. r Ammianus (xxiii. 2.) uses a word much too soft for the occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Græc. tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the satrap Arsaces; fierce, vul. gar, and (though it might deceive Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5.) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339.) translates and rejects it. ries, several legions along the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthæus were appointed generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas are not undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and at length acquired the tomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and provisions. The vigi-esteem, of his new masters; his valour and fidelity lant humanity of Julian had embarked a very large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels, that attempted to follow the rear of the army. The river Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium ;* and as soon as the trumpet gave the Julian enters the signal of march, the Romans passed Persian territo- the little stream which separated two April 7th. mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient discipline required a military oration; and Julian embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors. He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence of the Persians: and he exhorted them to imitate his firm resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote frontier, perpetually exposed to the inroads | of the hostile Arabs. A detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium, which completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of that important fortress." His march over From the moment that the Romans the desert of Me- entered the enemy's country, the sopotamia. country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was disposed in three columns." The strength of the infantry, and consequently of the whole army, was placed in the centre, under the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On the right, the brave Nevitta led a column of Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii. 3. Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is four stadia, or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad. (Xenophon Anabasis, 1. i. p. 41. edit. Hutchinson, with Foster's Observations, p. 29, &c. in the 2d volume of Spelman's translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335.) the enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the channel. Monumentum tutissimum et fabrè politum, cujus mœnia Abora (the orientals aspire Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5. u The enterprise and armament of Julian are described by himself, (Epist. xxvii.) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4, 5.) Libanius, (Orat. Parent, c. 108, 109. p. 332, 333.) Zosimus, (I. iii. p. 160, 161, 162.) Sozomen, (1. vi. c. 1.) and John Malela. (tom. ii. p. 17.) * Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously describes (xxiii. 6. p. 396-419. edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen great satrapies, or pro raised him to the military honours of the Roman service; and, though a christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction of convincing his ungrateful country, that an oppressed subject may prove the most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of the three principal columns. The front and flanks of the army were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of fifteen hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene, conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles. The ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column; but as he preferred the duties of a general to the state of a monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort of light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his presence could animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country which they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and barren waste, which could never be improved by the most powerful arts of human industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod above seven hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is described by one of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic Xenophon." "The country was a plain throughout, as even as the sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses, appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusevinces, (as far as the Seric or Chinese frontiers,) which were subject to the Sassanides. b y Ammianus (xxiv. 1.) and Zosimus (1. iii. p. 162, 163.) have accurately expressed the order of march. The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable. (Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 100-102. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he should be the brother (frater germanus) of an eldest and posthumous child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him that title. a See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon's memory, perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than either a soldier or a geographer will allow. o Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51.) confounds the antelope with the roe-buck, and the wild ass with the zebra. ments of the chace." The loose sand of the desert | preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. The fertile province of Assyria, Description of which stretched beyond the Tigris, as was frequently raised by the wind into clouds of dust and a great number of the soldiers of Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by the violence of an unexpected hurri cane. His success. The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes, and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates, and in the islands which are occasionally formed by that river. The city of Annah, or Anatho, the actual residence of an Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets, which enclose, within a natural fortification, a small island in the midst, and two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal presumption, by the mild exhortations of prince Hormisdas, and the approaching terrors of the fleet and army. They implored, and experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted the people to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and admitted Pusæus, the governor, to an honourable rank in his service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha could scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to content himself with an insulting promise that, when he had subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no longer refuse to grace the triumph of the conqueror. The inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and unwilling to yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who massacred, without remorse, and without punishment, some defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, incessantly hovered round the army: every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day less favourable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall, which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These e See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. 1. iii. p. 316. and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the old name and condition of Annah. Our blind travellers seldom possess any previous knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort deserve an honourable exception. d Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; an high encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had settled on the edge of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a dynasty of thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 360. Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabicæ, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces does not appear in the list. e See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2.) Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. 110, 111. p. 334.) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 164-168.) f The description of Assyria is furnished by Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.) who sometimes writes for children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1070-1082.) and by Ammianus, (Ì. xxiii. c. 6) The most useful of the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part. i. f Assyria. far as the mountains of Media,s extended about four hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. The whole country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty, approach, between Bagdad and | Babylon, within twenty-five miles of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much labour in a soft and yielding soil, connected the rivers, and intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial canals were various and important. They served to discharge the superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the intercourse of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily broke down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; but the food which supports the life of man, and particularly wheat and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and the husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable palm-trees; and the diligent natives celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of leather and linen, employed the industry of a numerous people, and afforded valuable materials for foreign trade; which appears, however, to have been conducted by the hands of strangers. Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the ruins of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and the populousness of the country was displayed in the mul 1. ii. p. 226-258.) Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189–224.) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii. p. 172-288.) Yet I much regret that the Írak Arabi of Abulfeda has not been translated. g Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which comprehended Ninus (Nineveh) and Arbela, bad assumed the more recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene: and he seems to fix Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the extreme cities of the actual province of Assyria. hThe two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of the Pastigris, or Shat-ul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east of modern Basra. (D'Anville, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xxx. p. 170—191.) i The learned Kæmpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat. Exoticæ, Fascicul. iv. p. 660-764.) the whole subject of palm-trees. titude of towns and villages, which were built of | petuously into the town, and, after the full gratifibricks, dried in the sun, and strongly cemented cation of every military appetite, Perisabor was with bitumen; the natural and peculiar production reduced to ashes; and the engines which assaulted of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking Cyrus reigned over Asia, the province of Assyria houses. The contest was continued by an incessant alone maintained, during a third part of the year, and mutual discharge of missile weapons; and the the luxurious plenty of the table and household of superiority which the Romans might derive from the Great King. Four considerable villages were the mechanical powers of their balista and cataassigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; pulta was counterbalanced by the advantage of the eight hundred stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, ground on the side of the besieged. But as soon as were constantly kept, at the expense of the country, an Helepolis had been constructed, which could for the royal stables; and as the daily tribute, which engage on equal terms with the loftiest ramparts, was paid to the satrap, amounted to one English the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that bushel of silver, we may compute the annual would leave no hope of resistance or of mercy, terrevenue of Assyria at more than twelve hundred rified the defenders of the citadel into an humble thousand pounds sterling.k submission; and the place was surrendered only two days after Julian first appeared under the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons, of both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were permitted to retire the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms, and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, and partly reserved for the public service; the useful stores were destroyed by fire, or thrown into the stream of the Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was revenged by the total ruin of Perisabor. Invasion of As The fields of Assyria were devoted syria, by Julian to the calamities of war; and A. D. 363, May. the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by their haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed, with their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries, who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the severe penalty of their rashSiege of Peri- ness. At the distance of fifty miles from sabor, the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, or Anbar, held the second rank in the province: a city, large, populous, and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall, almost encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by the valour of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were repulsed with contempt; and the cars of the Persian prince were wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth, he conducted an army of strangers against his king and country. The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful as well as vigorous defence; till the lucky stroke of a battering-ram, having opened a large breach by shattering one of the angles of the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed im kAssyria yielded to the Persian satrap an Artaba of silver each day. The well-known proportion of weights and measures, (see Bishop Hooper's elaborate Inquiry,) the specific gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will afford, after a short process, the an. nual revenue which I have stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or Tyrian, talents (252,0001.) from Assyria. of Maogamalclia. The city, or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of the capital of Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such an important fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege of Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by Julian himself, who seemed to place his. whole dependence in the military engines which he erected against the walls; while he secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his troops into the heart of the city. Under the direction of Nevitta and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labour of the troops, a mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready to issue from his confine The comparison of two passages in Herodotus (1. i. c. 192. 1. iii. c. 89-96.) reveals an important difference between the gross and the net revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or silver deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might annually save three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the seventeen or eighteen millions raised upon the people. ment into the streets of the hostile city. Julian Julian was an object of terror and Personal_behachecked their ardour, that he might ensure their hatred to the Persians: and the viour of Julian. success; and immediately diverted the attention of painters of that nation represented the invader of the garrison, by the tumult and clamour of a gene- their country under the emblem of a furious lion, ral assault. The Persians, who, from their walls, who vomited from his mouth a consuming fire." To contemptuously beheld the progress of an impotent his friends and soldiers the philosophic hero apattack, celebrated with songs of triumph the glory peared in a more amiable light; and his virtues of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that were never more conspicuously displayed, than in he might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, be- the last and most active period of his life. He fore he could hope to take the impregnable city of practised, without effort, and almost without merit, Maogamalcha. The city was already taken. His- the habitual qualities of temperance and sobriety. tory has recorded the name of a private soldier, the According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, first who ascended from the mine into a deserted which assumes an absolute dominion over the mind tower. The passage was widened by his com- and body, he sternly refused himself the indulgence panions, who pressed forwards with impatient of the most natural appetites." In the warm climate valour. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious people to the midst of the city. The astonished garrison the gratification of every sensual desire,° a youthful abandoned the walls, and their only hope of safety; conqueror preserved his chastity pure and inviolate: the gates were instantly burst open; and the re- nor was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of venge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by curiosity, to visit his female captives of exquisite lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing beauty, who, instead of resisting his power, would massacre. The governor, who had yielded on a have disputed with each other the honour of his promise of mercy, was burnt alive, a few days after-embraces. With the same firmness that he resistwards, on a charge of having uttered some disre-ed the allurements of love, he sustained the hardspectful words against the honour of prince ships of war. When the Romans marched through Hormisdas. The fortifications were razed to the the flat and flooded country, their sovereign, on ground; and not a vestige was left, that the city of foot, at the head of his legions, shared their Maogamalcha had ever existed. The neighbour- fatigues, and animated their diligence. In every hood of the capital of Persia was adorned with useful labour the hand of Julian was prompt and three stately palaces, laboriously enriched with strenuous; and the imperial purple was wet and every production that could gratify the luxury and dirty, as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier. pride of an eastern monarch. The pleasant situa- The two sieges allowed him some remarkable option of the gardens along the banks of the Tigris, portunities of signalizing his personal valour, which, was improved, according to the Persian taste, by in the improved state of the military art, can seldom the symmetry of flowers, fountains, and shady walks: be exerted by a prudent general. The emperor and spacious parks were enclosed for the reception stood before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of of the bears, lions, and wild boars, which were his extreme danger, and encouraged his troops maintained at a considerable expense for the plea- to burst open the gates of iron, till he was almost sure of the royal chace. The park-walls were overwhelmed under a cloud of missile weapons, and broke down, the savage game was abandoned to the huge stones, that were directed against his person. darts of the soldiers, and the palaces of Sapor were As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maoreduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman gamalcha, two Persians, devoting themselves for emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself their country, suddenly rushed upon him with ignorant, or careless, of the laws of civility, which drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received the prudence or refinement of polished ages have their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a established between hostile princes. Yet these steady and well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adwanton ravages need not excite in our breasts any versaries dead at his feet. The esteem of a prince vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A sim- who possesses the virtues which he approves, is the ple, naked statue, finished by the hand of a noblest recompence of a deserving subject; and the Grecian artist, is of more genuine value than all authority which Julian derived from his personal these rude and costly monuments of barbaric labour: merit, enabled him to revive and enforce the rigour and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin of of ancient discipline. He punished with death, or a palace, than by the conflagration of a cottage, our ignominy, the misbehaviour of three troops of horse, humanity must have formed a very erroneous esti- who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had lost their mate of the miseries of human life.' honour, and one of their standards: and he dis 1 The operations of the Assyrian war are circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5.) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112-123. p. 335-347.) Zosimus, (1. iii. p. 168-180.) and Gregory Nazianzen. (Orat. iv. p. 113. 144.) The military criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by Tillemont his faithful slave. m Libanius de ulciscendâ Juliani nece, c. 13. p. 162. n The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and Scipio, were acts of justice. Julian's chastity was voluntary, and, in his opinion, meritorious. o Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i. 104.) observes, that nihil corruptius moribus. The matrons and virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men, in licentious banquets: and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love, they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the incumbrance of dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1. p Ex virginibus autem, quæ speciosa sunt captæ, et in Perside, ubi fæminarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare aliquam voluit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of Persians is small and ugly but it has been improved, by the perpetual mixture of Cir. cassian blood. (Herodot, I. iii. c. 97. Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii, p. 420.) |