818

ASSAULT ON AMIDA

[CH. IIL of Sapor. 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. 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 ardour 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 derived from the blackness of the stone which composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. * The operations of the siege of Amida are very minutely described by Ammianus (19. 1-9), who acted an honourable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when the city was stormed by the Persians. +Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well known to require any description. The Segestans 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 afterward, appear as an independent nation, the ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situa tion of the Verta and Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at

4.D. 359.]

BACK OF THE CITY.

819

opened at a convenient distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced, under the portable covers 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 forward 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 breach 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.

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 favourable season for conquest.* 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 was more than probable, that the inconstancy of his barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which they had encoun tered such unexpected difficulties; and that the aged king least the latter) towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. 16, 9. * 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 stipulâ flavente 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. 5, 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 precipiti hædorumque improbo sidere exorto." To recon eile these apparent contradictions, we must allow for scme delay in

SECOND CAMPAIGN OF SAPOR.

[CH. I'L 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 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; 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 honour 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.t

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, Ursicinust was removed from his station the Persian king, some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the seasons. [Clinton (F. R. 1, 442) sees "no such difficulty as Gibbon has here supposed." He makes Sapor to have passed the Tigris in May, reached the Euphrates July 8, arrived before Amida July 27, and stormed the place October 7.- ED.] *The account of the sieges is given by Ammianus, 20, 6, 7. [For the situation of Singara, see ch. 13, vol. 1, p. 448.-ED.] +For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii, p. 201. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec, or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, 1. 3, 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. [Tecrit, on the Tigris, between Mosul and Bagdad, is now a small own, with the remains of a castle on a high rock, rising from the river. It was the birthplace of Saladin. Layard's Nineveh. p. 467.—ED.] Ammianus (18, 5, 6. 16, 3. 20, 2), represents the merit and disgrace

A.D. 361.]

SIEGE OF BEZABDE.

821

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 counsels, Ursicinus was again dispatched to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labours of a war, the honours 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 Boon 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 pre vail, the emperor himself would find it 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 Bezabde. 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 valour of the garrison, till the

of Ursicinus with that faithful attention which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be suspected, yet the whole account is VOL. II.

Y

822

STATE OF GAUL.

[CH. XIX.

approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege, and ingloriously to retreat into his winterquarters at Antioch, 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.

In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius bad abandoned to the barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Allemanni 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. 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. Re gardless 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 flourish ing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Stras burg, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. 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

The

consistent and probable. * Ammian. 20, 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 labours of the learned Ernesti. (Lipsia, 1778.)

The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 277.