The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part II.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, by Edward Gibbon, [1781], at sacred-texts.com

Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part II.

The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days,  ²⁹ he halted on the third at Beraea, or Aleppo, where he had the mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the most illustrious citizens of Beraea, who had embraced, either from interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length, turning towards the afflicted youth, "Since you have lost a father," said he, "for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply his place."  ³⁰ The emperor was received in a manner much more agreeable to his wishes at Batnae,  *_0060 a small town pleasantly seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently prepared by the inhabitants of Batnae, who seemed attached to the worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis,  ³¹ no longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages, from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge of futurity could be derived.  ³² He informed Libanius of his progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle,  ³³ which displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship for the sophist of Antioch.

Hierapolis,  *_0061 situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates,  ³⁴ had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of boats, which was previously constructed.  ³⁵ If the inclinations of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might have wasted the active and important season of the year in the circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhae,  ³⁶ a very ancient city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast; but as Carrhae is the point of separation of the two great roads, he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of the Romans.  ³⁷ But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus,  ³⁸ king of Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the praefect Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of a Barbarian king.  ³⁹ Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the Imperial mandates  ⁴⁰ awakened the secret indignation of a prince, who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the East, and the rivals of the Roman power.  !_0061

The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The 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 Carrhae; and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. 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 Antioch, he discovered the towers of Circesium,  *_0062 the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Caesars 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 preeminence of loyalty and valor 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 refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates  ⁴¹ 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 superfluous camels that attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium;  ⁴² and as soon as the trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient discipline 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.  ⁴³

From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's country,  ⁴⁴ the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was disposed in three columns.  ⁴⁵ 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 Arinthaeus were appointed generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas  ⁴⁶ 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 valor and fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service; and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction of convincing his ungrateful country, than at 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 Lucilianus 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.  ⁴⁷ "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 were alleviated by the amusements of the chase." 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,  ⁴⁹ 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 Pusaeus, the governor, to an honorable 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 emperor. 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,  *_0063 or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan,  ⁵⁰ incessantly hovered round the army; 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 favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans arrived at Macepracta, 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.  ⁵¹

The fertile province of Assyria,  ⁵² which stretched beyond the Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media,  ⁵³ 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.  ⁵⁴ 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 twenty-five miles, of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much labor 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 fig-tree;  *_0064 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. The face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable palm-trees;  ⁵⁵ 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 Syria 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 bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling.  ⁵⁶

Footnotes

29 From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of Chalcis, the road, over hills and through morasses, was extremely bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with sand, (Julian. epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should have neglected the great communication between Antioch and the Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des Grands Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100

30 Julian alludes to this incident, (epist. xxvii.,) which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c. 22.) The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie, (Vie de Julien, p. 413.)

*_0060 This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the Arabic, and means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian says, the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian. - St. Martin. Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56. - M.

31 See the curious treatise de Dea Syria, inserted among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p. 451-490, edit. Reitz.) The singular appellation of Ninus vetus (Ammian. xiv. 8) might induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of the Assyrians.

32 Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.

33 Julian. epist. xxvii. p. 399-402.

*_0061 Or Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles from the Euphrates. - M.

34 I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to M. d'Anville, for his recent geography of the Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly illustrates the expedition of Julian.

35 There are three passages within a few miles of each other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at the distance of four parasangs from the city.

Djisr Manbedj is the same with the ancient Zeugma. St. Martin, iii. 58 - M.

36 Haran, or Carrhae, was the ancient residence of the Sabaeans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I have obtained much Oriental knowledge concerning the ancient and modern geography of Syria and the adjacent countries.

On an inedited medal in the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60 - M.

37 See Xenophon. Cyropaed. l. iii. p. 189, edit. Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc Antony with 16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner, (Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)

38 Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p. 242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the 17th year of Constantius.

Arsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had ceased to reign twenty- five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes in Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the Roman and Christian alliance. On the accession of Julian, the same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to a safe seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian influence, and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian dominions with a body of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor, who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of Julian. Such is M. St. Martin's view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which rests on the Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and Mezrob the biographer of the Partriarch Narses. In the history of Armenia by Father Chamitch, and translated by Avdall, Tiran is still king of Armenia, at the time of Julian's death. F. Chamitch follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon. - M.

39 Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says, in general terms, that Constantius gave to his brother's widow, an expression more suitable to a Roman than a Christian.

40 Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for the occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it. Note: St. Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers mention such a letter, iii. 37. - M.

!_0061 Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but gave it only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41 - M.

*_0062 Kirkesia the Carchemish of the Scriptures. - M.

41 Latissimum flumen 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 2d 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.

42 Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.

43 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, (l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)

44 Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,) which were subject to the Sassanides.

45 Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162, 163) rately expressed the order of march.

46 The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. 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 posthumous child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him that title.

Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder brother by another mother who had several children, ii. 24 - M.

47 See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. 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.

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. l. 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 Annah. Our blind travellers seldom possess any previous knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort deserve an honorable exception.

*_0063 This is not a title, but the name of a great Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79. - M.

50 Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a 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 to that of the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 360. Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabicae, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces does not appear in the list.

Note: Rodosaces-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. M. St. Martin would read Massanitarum, the same with the Mauzanitae of Malala. - M.

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

Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M. St. M. considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii. 83. - M.

52 The description of Assyria, is furnished by Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes writes for children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. 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.

53 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.

54 The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of the Pasitigris, or Shutul- 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 Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)

*_0064 We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have been the case ir 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 239 - M.

55 The learned Kaempfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat. Exoticae, Fasicul. iv. p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.

56 Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an Artaba of silver each day. The well-known 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, (l. i. c. 192, l. 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.