lect such a military force as might enable him, though sin cerely desirous of peace, to negotiate with the greater weight and dignity. Three persons only assisted at this important conference, the minister Apharban, the prefect of the guards, and an officer who had commanded on the Armenian frontier.* The first condition proposed by the ambassador, is not at present of a very intelligible nature; and the city of Nisibis might be established for the place of mutual exchange, or, as we should formerly have termed it, for the staple of trade between the two empires. There is no difficulty in conceiving the intention of the Roman princes to improve their revenue by some restraints upou commerce; but as Nisibis was situated within their own dominions, and as they were masters both of the imports and exports, it should seem that such restraints were the objects of an internal law, rather than of a foreign treaty. To render them more effectual, some stipulations were probably required on the side of the king of Persia, which appeared so very repugnant either to his interest or to his dignity, that Narses could not be persuaded to subscribe them. As this was the only article to which he refused his consent, it was no longer insisted on; and the emperors either suffered the trade to flow in its natural channels, or contented themselves with such restrictions as it depended on their own authority to establish.

As soon as this difficulty was removed, a solemn peace was concluded and ratified between the two nations. The conditions of a treaty, so glorious to the empire, and so necessary to Persia, may deserve a more peculiar attention, as the history of Rome presents very few transactions of similar nature; most of her wars having either been terminated by absolute conquest, or waged against barbarians ignorant of the use of letters. I. The Aboras, or, as it is called by Xenophon, the Araxes, was fixed as the boundary between the two monarchies.t That river, which rose near the Tigris, was increased, a few miles below Nisibis, by the mani fasces in provinciam novam ferrentur. Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quæsita. * He had been governor of Sumium. (Pet. Patricius, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 30.) This province secms to be mentioned by Moses of Chorene (Geograph. p. 360), and lay to the east of mount Ararat. By an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position of Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may have produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river for the boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman fron

448

LIMITS ASSIGNED

[CH. XIII little stream of the Mygdonius, passed under the walls of Singara, and fell into the Euphrates at Circesium, a frontier town, which, by the care of Diocletian, was very strongly fortified.* Mesopotamia, the object of so many wars, was eded to the empire; and the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all pretensions to that great province. II. They relinquished to the Romans five provinces beyond the Tigris.t Their situation formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength was soon improved by art and military skill. Four of these, to the north of the river, were districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable extent; Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene: but on the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and mountainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the Carduchians, who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in the heart of the despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thou sand Greeks traversed their country, after a painful march, or rather engagement, of seven days; and it is confessed by their leader, in his incomparable relation of the retreat, that

or

tier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris. [M. Guizot has here pointed out some errors of Gibbon; but his corrections are superseded by the more accurate information which Mr. Layard has just furnished in his latest work on Nineveh and Babylon. There are two branches of the Aboras, or more properly Chaboras; the western, true Khabour," rises near Ras-el-Ain (i. e., the head of the spring), and is joined, near the volcanic hill of Koucab, by the eastern, formerly the Mygdonius, now the Jerujer, on a tributary stream of which stands Nisibir, the Nisibis of antiquity (p. 234 and 308). Xenophon did not cross this river. The ruins of Sinjar, believed to be the Singara of the Romans (p. 249), are far to the eastward, separated from all these streams by the mountain ridge of Belled Singar. There is another Khabour (p. 61) which falls into the Tigris from the east, and which Xenophon must have passed, but does not mention. D'Anville wrongly supposed it to be the Centritis: this was the name of the eastern Tigris, formed by the united waters of the Bitlis, Sert, and Bahtan (p. 63). The Araxes of Xenophon is the well known river which flows into the Caspian sea, and is now designated the Arras (p. 15).--ED.] * Procopius de Edificiis, lib. 2. c. 6. + Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Carduene, are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two, Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I have preferred Ammianus (1. 26, 7), because it might be proved, that Sophene was never in the hands of the Persians, either before the reign of Diocletian, or after that of Jovian. For want of correct maps, like those of M. d'Anville, almost all the moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their head, have imagined that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome, that the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.

they suffered more from the arrows of the Carduchians, than from the power of the great king. Their posterity, the Curds, with very little alteration either of name or manners, acknowledged the nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome, was restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of the imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The limits of Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha in Media, and this increase of dominion was not so much an act of liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned beyond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the Parthians from the crown of Armenia;† and when the Romans acquired the possession of them, they stipulated, at the expense of the usurpers, an ample compensation, which invested their ally with the extensive and fertile country of Atropatene. Its principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the modern Tauris, was frequently honoured with the residence of Tiridates; and as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the buildings and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes. IV. The country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and savage: but they were accustomed to the use of arms, and they separated from the empire barbarians much fiercer and more formidable than themselves. The narrow defiles of mount Caucasus were in their hands, and it was in their choice, either to admit or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia, whenever a rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer climes of the south.§ The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which was resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to the strength and security of the Roman power in Asia.

The

Xenophon's Anabasis, lib. 4. Their bows were three cubits in length, their arrows two; they rolled down stones that were each a waggon-load. The Greeks found a great many villages in that rude country. + According to Eutropius (6, 9, as the text is represented by the best MSS.) the city of Tigranocerta was in Arzanene. The names and situation of the other three may be faintly traced.

Compare Herodotus, lib. 1, c. 97, with Moses Chorenens. Hist. Armen. lib. 2, c. 84, and the map of Armenia given by his editors. Hiberi, locorum potentes, Caspia viâ Sarmatam in Armenios raptim effundunt. Tacit. Anual. 6, 64. See Strabon. Geograph. lib. 11. p. 764. ¶ Peter Patricius (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) is the only writer who VOL. I. 2 G

450

LAST ROMAN TRIUMPH.

[CH. XIIL east enjoyed a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the treaty between the rival monarchies was strictly observed till the death of Tiridates; when a new generation, animated with different views and different passions, succeeded to the government of the world; and the grandson of Narses undertook a long and memorable war against the princes of the house of Constantine.

The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants and barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession of Illyrian peasants. As soon as Diocletian entered into the twentieth year of his reign, he celebrated that memorable era, as well as the success of his arms, by the pomp of a Roman triumph.* Maximian, the equal partner of his power, was his only companion in the glory of that day. The two Cæsars had fought and conquered; but the merit of their exploits was ascribed, according to the rigour of ancient maxims, to the auspicious influence of their fathers and emperors.† The triumph of Diocletian and Maximian was less magnificent, perhaps, than those of Aurelian and Probus, but it was dignified by several circumstances of superior fame and good fortune. Africa and Britain, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, furnished their respective trophies; but the most distinguished ornament was of a more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by an important conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and provinces, were carried before the Imperial car. The images of the captive wives, the sisters, and the children, of the great king, afforded a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the people. In the eyes of posterity this triumph is remarkable, by a distinction of a less honourable kind. It was the last that Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period, the emperors ceased to vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire. The spot on which Rome was founded, had been consementions the Iberian article of the treaty. Euseb. in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery of the treatise de Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that the triumph and the Vicennalia were celebrated at the same time. At the time of the Vicennalia, Galerius seems to have kept his station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38. Clinton inakes them two different ceremonies; the triumph in A.D. 302, and the Vicennalia on November 20, A.D. 303. Diocletian and Galerius passed the winter of 302 together at Nicomedia Eutropius (9, 27) mentions them as a part of the

crated by ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the Capitol.* The native Romans felt and confessed the power of this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected, in some measure, by the opinion of political utility. The form and the seat of government were intimately blended together, nor was it esteemed possible to transport the one without destroying the other. But the sovereignty of the capital was gradually annihilated in the extent of conquest; the provinces rose to the same level, and the vanquished nations acquired the name and privileges, without imbibing the partial affections, of Romans. During a long period, however, the remains of the ancient constitution, and the influence of custom, preserved the dignity of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African or Illyrian extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat of their power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations of policy. The court of the emperor of the west was, for the most part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the important purpose of watching the motions of the barbarians of Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendour of an imperial city. The houses are described as numerous and well-built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theatre, a mint, a palace, baths, which bore the name of triumph. As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more than their images could be exhibited. * Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject (5, 51-55), full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighbouring city of Veii. Julius Cæsar was reproached with the intention of removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Cæsar, c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier, the third ode of the third book of Horace wa intended to divert Augustus from the execution of a similar design.