Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III

While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance
of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against
the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate
frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war, and a
precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius,
the Prætorian præfect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by
the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. 49 4911 These overtures of
peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
invested with that character, was honorably received in his
passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,
(such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Cæsar,
had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with
the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was
consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.
50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the
Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer:
“Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
the war.” A few days after the departure of Narses, three
ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, 51 would persuade
the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the
progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
hostile arts of Antoninus, 52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
custom of the Persians, the most important business was
frequently discussed. 53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.

49 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 9.]

4911 (return) [ In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii.
177.—M.]

50 (return) [ Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
has informed us of his behavior.]

51 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
Ædesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]

52 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
traitor with some compassion and esteem.]

53 (return) [ This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]

The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe
the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a
bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the
plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with
men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front,
conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the
place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and
renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his
right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent
tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and
generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and
the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury,
consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured
to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor,
had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in
tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the
Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble
and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner
advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered
that every precaution had been used which could retard their
progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their
cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage
throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers
were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the
Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing
his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer
circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida,
he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not
awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious
insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened
with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him
not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification
of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards
the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant
surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a
beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a
javelin, shot from one of the balistæ. The funeral of the prince
of the Chionites was celebrated according to the rites of the
country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the
solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should
serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate
the memory, of his son.

54 (return) [ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]

5411 (return) [ These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who
inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of
the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
same people, called by the ancients Legæ, by the Armenians Gheg,
or Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
285.—M.]

The ancient city of Amid or Amida, 55 which sometimes assumes the
provincial appellation of Diarbekir, 56 is advantageously situate
in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial
channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream
bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city.
The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor
of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of
military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced
to the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by
the arms of Sapor. 57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended
on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which
followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned; the
south to the Vertæ; the north to the Albanians; the east to the
Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
with a formidable line of Indian elephants. 58 The Persians, on
every side, supported their efforts, and animated their courage;
and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety,
displayed, in the prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a
youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were
repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were
again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel
legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized
their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart
of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated
assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase,
scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris.
Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to
the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice;
they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of
confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and
if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few
minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been
purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried,
without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had
recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of
the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient
distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under
the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and
undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the
same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the
soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile
weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could
suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defence of
Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by
the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may
be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed
their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram,
and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by
disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to
escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
in a promiscuous massacre.

55 (return) [ For the description of Amida, see D’Herbelot,
Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 108.
Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
p. 301. Voyages d’Otter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr,
tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a learned and
accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which illustrates the
operations of the siege.]

56 (return) [ Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
_Kara_ is derived from the _blackness_ of the stone which
composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ——In my Mém. Hist.
sur l’Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved
this city, still called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city
of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous Tigranocerta, of
which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege
of Amida, see St. Martin’s Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium,
nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non
nimium amplæ.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who
took refuge from the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St.
Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely doubtful.
Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to
amount only to—M.]

57 (return) [ The operations of the siege of Amida are very
minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
the city was stormed by the Persians.]

58 (return) [ Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
known to require any description. The Segestans [_Sacastenè. St.
Martin._] inhabited a large and level country, which still
preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and D’Herbelot,
Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vertæ and
Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the latter)
towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. ——Klaproth
considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and
quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in support of his opinion.
They are the Ossetæ, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
Hist. de l’Asie, p. 179, 180.—M. ——The Vertæ are still unknown.
It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These
people were already known; and we find from Armenian authors that
they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were
often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced
differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us
from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177.—M.]

But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.

As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
season for conquest. 59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was
obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; 60 the one situate in
the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,
surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of
the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made
prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines
of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror
abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully
restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in that
important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply supplied
with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms
of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise
against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally
esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of
the independent Arabs. 61 6111

59 (return) [ Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
invaded Mesopotamia; “Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;” a
circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer’s Observations
on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. Shaw’s Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2.
The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
days, the autumn was far advanced. “Autumno præcipiti hædorumque
improbo sidere exorto.” To reconcile these apparent
contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
seasons.]

60 (return) [ The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
xx. 6, 7. ——The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.—M.]

61 (return) [ For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
D’Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
robbers.]

6111 (return) [ St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
south. “The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
might be applied to many places.”]

The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and
would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62
Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken
by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the
ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.

62 (return) [ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]

63 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
Antiochiæ redit in Syriam ærumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et
atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is _thus_ that James Gronovius has
restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsiæ,
1773.) * Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.—M.]

In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to
the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still
acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of
Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents
and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of
all the territories which they should be able to subdue. 64 But
the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently
provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered
and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil.
Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion,
these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they
were desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities,
Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c., besides
a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and
for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of Germany,
still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations
on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse,
they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a
rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled
and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the
modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the
island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, 65
and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their
Gallic monarchy. 66 From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine,
the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their
own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations was
three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a
still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and
the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

64 (return) [ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
iv.)]

65 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and
morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar.
p. 558.]

66 (return) [ The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet
was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and
seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more
celebrated competitor, the Abbé le Bœuf, an antiquarian, whose
name was happily expressive of his talents.]