3rd April]

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 [27th March] of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings.42 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 [e, 2nd and Antioch, he discovered the towers of Circesium, the extreme [Karya 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 accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates 43 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 vigilant 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

42 [For a description of the locality (now Ar-Rakka) see Sachau, Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien, p. 241 sqq.]

43 Latissimum flumem 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, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with Foster's Observations, p. 29, &c. in the second 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.

April]

[Khabar]

the Persian

April 7th

superfluous camels that attempted to follow the rear of the [5th and 6th army. The river Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium ; 44 and, as soon as the trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little stream which separated two Julian enters mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient discipline territories 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.45

His march

over the desert of Mesopotamia

From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's country, 46 the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was disposed in three columns.47 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 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 ap

44 Monumentum tutissimum et fabre politum, cujus mœnia Abora (the Orientals aspire Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.

45 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 (1. iii. p. 160, 161, 162 [c. 12]), Sozomen (1. vi. c. 1), and John Malala (tom. ii. p. 17 (p. 328, ed. Bonn]). [Tabari's account of the war of Julian has no value (Nöldeke, p. 59 sqq.). It is derived from the Syriac Romance of Julian and Jovian, for which see Noldeke in Ztsch. d. Morg. Ges., 28, 263 sqq.. but also, in one point at least, from a second source which was also used by Malalas (p. 332, cp. Tabari, p. 61); see Büttner-Wobst, Philologus, 51, p. 576.] 46 Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously describes (xxiii. 6, p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to) the eighteen great satrapies, or provinces (as far as the Seric, or Chinese, frontiers), which were subject to the Sassanides.

47 Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (1. iii. p. 162, 163 [13]) have accurately expressed the order of march.

pointed generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas 48 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 esteem, of his new masters; his valour and fidelity 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 Lucillianus 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.49 "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

48 The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable (Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 100-102 [c. 27]; 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. [Possibly an elder stepbrother, St. Martin suggests (on Lebeau, ii. 24).]

49 See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46 [c. 5, § 1 sqq.]. 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.

His success

[Ana]

[April]

there, they had all an aromatic smell; out no trees could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses,50 арpeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march 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.

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,51 the actual residence of an Arabian Emir, is composed of two long streets, which inclose, 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 shewed 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 for[Anatelbus] tress 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,52 incessantly hovered round the army:

50 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.

51 See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. 1. iii. p. 316, and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. let. 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.

52 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

53

of Assyria

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 Mace-[April] practa, 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 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.5 The fertile province of Assyria,54 which stretched beyond the Description Tigris as far as the mountains of Media,55 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.56 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 twentyfive, 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

to that of the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 360. Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabicæ, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces does not appear in the list. [The identification of Ammian's Assanitarum with the tribe of Gassan has been questioned.]

53 See Ammianus (xxiv. 1, 2), Libanius (Orat. Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334), Zosimus (1. iii. p. 164-168).

54 The description of Assyria is furnished by Herodotus (1. i. c. 192, &c.), who sometimes writes for children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo (1. xvi. p. 1070-1082), and by Ammianus (1. xxiii. c. 6). The most useful of the modern travellers are Tavernier (part i. 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 Irak Arabi of Abulfeda has not been translated. [A translation by Reiske appeared in Büsching's Magazin for modern Hist. and Geogr. (iv. 121 sqq., v. 299 sqq.) in Gibbon's lifetime.]

Ammianus remarks that the primitive Assyria, which comprehended Ninus (Nineveh) and Arbela, had 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.

56 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). [The lower courses of the Tigris and Euphrates underwent considerable changes since the middle ages; see App. 24.]