L'usen a fing traciment of the mäed hin prunt auter visst ane ganz eri me mus iSSETC biga, aut cont de aries we if any le mach bugungi aut ende dae if (ricene, endamed the woop & te murpart; the ME ET proceeded in the keerva d me ovutta; and the rates from a motive either of use mar, we front i adi va orier that the wäcke The of mara exinded me The oritary post of Julia vis n we van d' ue ontre gilam, but, as be preferred the duties of a grera vi tie sate di a moxart, be rapidy moved, with a smal wont d light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the facks, wherever his preacue and animate or protect the march of the Roman army Ine comntry wilch 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 adventures of Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable Zosimus, 1 # [6, 27] 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 prosthumous child; nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him that title." * Bas the first book of the Anabanin (c. 5), p. 45, 46. This pleasing work is original mand authentic. Yet Xenophon's memory, perhaps many years after the expedition, bus momstines betrayed him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than either a soldier or a geographer will allow. 16. Martin conceives that he was an older brother by another mother who had meveral children (il. 24),- M. 66 "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, 48 appeared to be "the only inhabitants of the desert, and the fatigues of the march 66 were alleviated by the amusements of the chace." The loose sand of the desert 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 hurricane. 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 Anah, 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. 48 Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the Anabasis (vol. i. p. 51), confounds the antelope with the roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra. 49 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 Anah." Our blind travellers seldom possess any previous knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort deserve an honourable exception. ter lands. r to MEL HAN im Formisis sarei vaa 3 te rartans vere inay Polizei de must lay es arounce u de oertions of rum, mat vien te Romans amei at Maconiera they emained me runs if te val ved nad jen Zusticei w że a etent angs of Astra u er der fomics im ne neursices or the Moteg These riminares if the etion of Jan appear 11 dare endret kur item is mi ve may zamorte near free hundred miles fim de irs of Cresim u de wa of Maceracta The femie province of Aspravich sched beyond the Tora as far as the mountains of Mela, extended about Sur hundrei mies m de incent wil of Macetracta to the territory of Bar, viem de med steams of the Expirates and Thome tharge memories in the Persian Gili The whole country might have claimed the pecular name of Mesopotamia, as the two nuen, which are never more distant than ify, approach, between Baglad and Babylon, within twenty-ive miles of each other. * Famon notinia ater, wa Annians—a high acemim for an Arb. The tribe of Gawan had werted in the edge of soma, and mined some ame in Jamesons, moder a dynasty of thirty-one rings remira from the me if Pimpey that of the khalif D'Herbelds, Bisnotaeque Omensie p. 6. Preek. Specimen Hist. Arabice, p. 7-7. The name of Rodosaces does not innear in the list * See Am 26.8 11.7. 1. -, Libanks Ora. Parental a 11, 111, p. 334), ZoMita dela. ($15), p. 154-19 "The description of Awyria la furnished by Herdins 16,5 192, &c.) who sometimes writes for children, and sometimes for painsophers; by Strabe (L xvi. p. 1679-1982 p. 756-746, ed. Casaub.,; and by Ammianus L. The most neful of the modern travellers are Tavernier part 11 p. 22-258. Otter (tem. ii. p. 35-49, and 189-224), and Niebuhr (tom, ii. p. 172-283. Yet I much regret that the Irak Arabi of Abulfeda has not been translated. * Ammianus remarks that the primitive Assyria, which comprehended Ninus (Nineveh) and Arbela, had ass med 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. * The two rivers' unite at Apamea, or Corna (one hundred miles from the Persian Gulf), into the broad stream of the Pasitigris, 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 Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xxx. p. 170-191). *This is not a title, but the name of a the same with the Mauzanite of Malala. great Persian family. St. Martin, vol. iii.-M. p. 79. M. Rodonaces Malek is king. St. Martin considers that Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing the tribe of Gassan to the Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. Ht. Martin would read Massanitarum, This Syriac or Chaldaic word has relation to its position; it easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. St. Martin considers it the Massice of Pliny, v. 21. St. Martin, vol. iii. p. 83. -M. 55 The 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 figtree; 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. 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 multitude of towns and villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun and strongly cemented with bitumen, the natural and peculiar production of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus reigned over Asia, the province of Assyria alone maintained, during a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table and household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were assigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred stallions and sixteen thousand mares were constantly kept, at the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the daily tribute which was paid to the satrap amounted to one English bushel of silver, we 55 The learned Kæmpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted (Amœnitat. Exoticæ, Fascicul. iv. p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees. "We are informed by Mr. Gibbon that nature has denied to the soil and climate of Assyria some of her choicest gifts-the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have been the case in the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not so at the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape, the olive, and the fig are the most common fruits in the province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir, Geogr. Mem. on Persia, p. 239.-M. Semipet in Judaz do se alumnes cf and the gold sencer malamet mi rides people se an of que and met vr cat been omitted 3 des 123 maste 11 ze ma Tres Te ning for mars smmoned the man s Der issuance: and annnguered with their own hands the run of her smcy. The vade vara rendent impraneable: a food of vicers vis purred into e ramps and funny anemal tags there of ilan vere colleedi to extend with the more depar thetacie wae wurmounted by the peneremore of the Depocames, v20 were **** danger, and who felt themselves aimed ng the spirit of ver leader. The damage is madully repaired: he water were restored to their proper via nels; while groves of jë motren were eut down and placed along the broken parts of the rad; and be army passed over the Imad and deeper canals on Widga of Bating rafta, which were supported by the help of Eladders. Too die of Asyria presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor; and they both paid the severe penalty of their rashLes. At the distance of fifty miles from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, or Anbar, held the second rack in the province: a city, large, populous, and well fortifed, 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 ears 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 14 Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an artaba of silver each day. The wellknown 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 annual revenue which I have stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria. 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. * Libanius says that it was a great city of Assyrin, called after the name of the τοίμαίοις μάτης: την πόλη Ασσυρίων μεγάλη του TAT ARRIX CUAVTAL krávoμng. The orator of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Hyrians called it Firuz Shahpur, or Firus habbur, in Persian, the victory of Shahpur. It owed that name to Sapor the St. Its ruins are placed at Tell 'Akhar, between the left bank of the Euphrates and the Nahr I'sa. Chesney, Euphrat. Exped. vol. i. p. 438.-S. |