V.

§ 1. AFTER these events there was no time for lamentation or weeping. For after he had been laid out as well as the circumstances and time permitted, that he might be buried where he himself had formerly proposed, at daybreak the next morning, which was on the 27th of June, while the enemy surrounded us on every side, the generals of the army assembled, and having convened the chief officers of the cavalry and of the legions, deliberated about the election of an emperor.

2. There were great and noisy divisions. Arinthæus and Victor, and the rest of those who had been attached to the court of Constantius, sought for a fit man of their own party. On the other hand, Nevitta and Dagalaiphus, and the nobles of the Gauls, sought for a man among their own ranks.

3. While the matter was thus in dispute, they all unanimously agreed upon Sallustius. And when he pleaded ill health and old age, one of the soldiers of rank observing his real and fixed reluctance said, " And what would you do if the emperor while absent himself, as has often happened. had intrusted you with the conduct of this war? Would you not have postponed all other considerations and applied yourself to extricating the soldiers at once from the difficulties which press on them? Do so now and then, if we are allowed to reach Mesopotamia, it will be time enough for the united suffrages of both armies to declare a lawful emperor."

4. Amid these little delays in so important a matter, before opinions were justly weighed, a few made an uproar, as often happens in critical circumstances, and Jovian was elected emperor, being the chief officer of the guards, and a man of fair reputation in respect of his father's services. For he was the son of Varronianus, a distinguished count," who had not long since retired from military service to lead a private life.

5. And immediately he was clothed in the imperial robes, and was suddenly led forth out of the tent and

1 It must be remembered that throughout Ammianus's history a count is always spoken of as of higher rank than a duke.

passed at a quick pace through the army as it was preparing to march.

6. And as the line extended four miles, those in the van hearing some persons salute Jovian as Augustus, raised the same cry still more loudly, for they were caught by the relationship, so to say, of the name, which differed only by one letter from that of Julian, and so they thought that Julian was recovered and was being led forth with great acclamations as had often been the case. But when the new emperor, who was both taller and less upright, was seen, they suspected what had happened, and gave vent to tears and lamentations.

7. And if any lover of justice should find fault with what was done at this extreme crisis as imprudent, he might still more justly blame sailors who, having lost a skilful pilot when both winds and waves are agitated by a storm, commit the helm of their vessel to some one of their comrades.

8. This affair having been thus settled by a blind sort of decision of Fortune, the standard-bearer of the Jovian legion, which Varronianus had formerly commanded, having had a quarrel with the new emperor while he was a private individual, because he had been a violent disparager of his father, now fearing danger at his hand, since he had risen

a height exceeding any ordinary fortune, fled to the Persians. And having been allowed to tell what he knew, he informed Sapor, who was at hand, that the prince whom he dreaded was dead, and that Jovian, who had hitherto been only an officer of the guards, a man of neither energy nor courage, had been raised by a mob of camp drudges to a kind of shadow of the imperial authority.

9. Sapor hearing this news, which he had always anxiously prayed for, and being elated by this unexpected good fortune, having reinforced the troops who had fought against us with a strong body of the royal cavalry, sent them forward with speed to attack the rear of our army.

VI.

$1. AND while these arrangements were being made, the victims and entrails were inspected on behalf of Jovian, and it was pronounced that he would ruin everything if he

remained in the camp, as he proposed, but that if he quitted it he would have the advantage.

2. And just as we were beginning our march, the Persians attacked us, preceded by their elephants. Both our horses and men were at first disordered by their roaring and formidable onset; but the Jovian and Herculean le gions slew a few of the monsters, and made a gallant resistance to the mounted cuirassiers.

3. Then the legions of the Jovii and Victores coming up to aid their comrades, who were in distress, also slew two elephants and a great number of the enemy's troops. And on our left wing three most gallant men were slain, Julian, Macrobius, and Maximus, all tribunes of the legions which were then the chief of the whole army.

4. When they were buried as well as circumstances permitted, as night was drawing on, and as we were pressing forward with all speed towards a fort called Sumere, the dead body of Anatolius was recognized and buried with a hurried funeral. Here also we were rejoined by sixty soldiers and a party of the guards of the palace, whom we have mentioned as having taken refuge in a fort called Vaccatum.

5. Then on the following day we pitched our camp in a valley in as favourable a spot as the nature of the ground permitted, surrounding it with a rampart like a wall, with sharp stakes fixed all round like so many swords, with the exception of one wide entrance.

6. And when the enemy saw this they attacked us with all kinds of missiles from their thickets, reproaching_us also as traitors and murderers of an excellent prince. For they had heard by the vague report of some deserters that Julian had fallen by the weapon of a Roman.

7. And presently, while this was going on, a body of cavalry ventured to force their way in by the Prætorian gate, and to advance almost up to the emperor's tent. But they were vigorously repulsed with the loss of many of their men killed and wounded.

8. Quitting this camp, the next night we reached a place called Charcha, where we were safe, because the artificial mounds of the river had been broken to prevent the Saracens from overrunning Armenia, so that no one was able to harass our lines as they had done before.

9. Then on the 1st of July we marched thirty furlongs more, and came to a city called Dura, where our baggagehorses were so jaded, that their drivers, being mostly reeruits, marched on foot till they were hemmed in by a troop of Saracens; and they would all have been killed if some squadrons of our light cavalry had not gone to their assistance in their distress.

10. We were exposed to the hostility of these Saracens because Julian had forbidden that the presents and gratuities, to which they had been accustomed, should be given to them; and when they complained to him, they were only told that a warlike and vigilant emperor had iron, not gold.

11. Here, owing to the obstinate hostility of the Persians, we lost four days. For when we advanced they followed us, compelling us to retrace our steps by their incessant attacks. When we halted gradually to fight, they retired, tormenting us by their long delay. And now (for when men are in great fear even falsehoods please them) a report being spread that we were at no great distance from our own frontier, the army raised an impatient shout, and demanded to be at once led across the Tigris.

12. But the emperor and his officers opposed this demand, and showed them that the river, now just at the time of the rising of the Dogstar, was much flooded, entreated them not to trust themselves to its dangerous currents, reminding them that most of them could not swim, and adding likewise that the enemy had occupied the banks of the river, swoln as it was at many parts.

13. But when the demand was repeated over and over again in the camp, and the soldiers with shouts and great eagerness began to threaten violence, the order was given very unwillingly that the Gauls. mingled with the northern Germans, should lead the way into the river, in order that if they were carried away by the violence of the stream the obstinacy of the rest might be shaken; or on the other hand, if they accomplished the passage in safety the rest might attempt it with more confidence.

14. And men were selected suited to such an enterprise, who from their childhood had been accustomed in their native land to cross the greatest rivers. And when the darkness of night presented an opportunity for making the

attempt unperceived, as if they had just escaped from a prison, they reached the opposite bank sooner than could have been expected; and having beaten down and slain numbers of the Persians whom, though they had been placed there to guard the passage, their fancied security had lulled into a gentle slumber, they held up their hands, and shook their cloaks so as to give the concerted signal that their bold attempt had succeeded.

15. And when the signal was seen, the soldiers became eager to cross, and could only be restrained by the promise of the engineers to make them bridges by means of bladders and the hides of slaughtered animals.

VII.

§ 1. WHILE these vain attempts were going on, king Sapor, both while at a distance, and also when he approached, received from his scouts and from our deserters a true account of the gallant exploits of our men, of the disgraceful slaughter of his own troops, and also of his elephants in greater numbers than he ever remembered to have lost before. And he heard also that the Roman army, being hardened by its continual labours since the death of its glorious chief, did not now think so much, as they said, of safety as of revenge; and were resolved to extricate themselves from their difficulties either by a complete victory or by a glorious death.

2. He looked on this news as formidable, being aware by experience that our troops who were scattered over these provinces could easily be assembled, and knowing also that his own troops after their heavy losses were in a state of the greatest alarm; he also heard that we had in Mesopotamia an army little inferior in numbers to that before him.

3. And besides all this, his courage was damped by the fact of five hundred men having crossed that swollen river by swimming in perfect safety, and having slain his guards, and so emboldening the rest of their comrades to similar hardihood.

4. In the mean time, as the violence of the stream prevented any bridges from being constructed, and as everything which could be eaten was consumed, we passed twe