History

Meanwhile our men, since the raging waters prevented bridges from being made, and everything edible had been used up, passed two days in wretchedness, deprived of everything useful; excited by hunger and wrath, they were in a state of frenzy and eager to lose their lives by the sword rather then by starvation, the most shameful kind of death.

However, the eternal power of God in heaven was on our side, and the Persians, beyond our hopes, took the first step and sent as envoys for securing peace the Surena and another magnate, being themselves also low in their minds, which the fact that the Roman side was superior in almost every battle shook more and more every day.

Nevertheless, they offered conditions which were difficult and involved, for they pretended that from feelings of humanity the most merciful of kings would allow the remnants of the army to return, if the emperor and his most distinguished generals would comply with his demands.

In reply to this Arintheus was sent to him with the prefect Salutius, but, while a deliberate discussion was going on as to what ought to be determined, four days passed by, full of torments from hunger and worse than any death.

If the emperor, before letting these envoys go, had used this space of time to withdraw gradually from the enemy’s territories, he could surely have reached the protection of Corduena, a rich region belonging to us, and distant only a hundred miles from the spot where all this took place.

Now the king obstinately demanded the lands which (as he said) were his and had been taken from him long ago by Maximianus; but, in fact, as the negotiations showed, he required as our ransom five provinces on the far side of the Tigris: Arzanena, Moxoëna, and Zabdicena, as well as Rehimena and Corduena with fifteen fortresses, besides Nisibis, Singara and Castra Maurorum, a very important stronghold.

And whereas it would have been better to fight ten battles than give up any one of these, the band of flatterers pressed upon the timid emperor, harping upon the dreaded name of Procopius, and declaring that if he returned on learning of the death of Julian, he would with the fresh troops under his command easily and without opposition make himself emperor.

Jovian, inflamed by these dangerous hints too continually repeated, without delay surrendered all that was asked, except that with difficulty he succeeded in bringing it about that Nisibis and Singara should pass into control of the Persians without their inhabitants, and that the Romans in the fortresses that were to be taken from us should be allowed to return to our protection.

To these conditions there was added another which was destructive and impious, namely, that after the completion of these agreements, Arsaces, our steadfast and faithful friend should never, if he asked it, be given help against the Persians. This was contrived with a double purpose, that a man who at the emperor’s order had devastated Chiliocomum might be punished, and that the opportunity might be left of presently invading Armenia without opposition. The result was that later this same Arsaces was taken alive, and that the Parthians amid various dissensions and disturbances seized a great tract of Armenia bordering on Media, along with Artaxata.

When this shameful treaty was concluded, lest anything contrary to the agreements should be done during the truce, distinguished men were given on both sides as hostages: from our side Nemota, Victor, and Bellovaedius, tribunes of famous corps, and from the opposite party Bineses, one of the distinguished magnates, and three satraps besides of no obscure name.

And so a peace of thirty years was made and consecrated by the sanctity of oaths; but we returned by other routes, and since the places near the river were avoided as rough and uneven, we suffered from lack of water and food.

But the peace which was granted under pretence of humanity caused the destruction of many, who, tormented by hunger up to their last breath, and so going ahead unnoticed by the army, were either, being unskilled in swimming, swallowed up in the depths of the river, or if they mastered the power of the stream and reached the opposite bank, were seized by the Saracens or Persians (who, as I said shortly before, had been routed by the Germans), and were either cut down like so many cattle, or led off farther inland to be sold.

But as soon as the trumpets’ blast openly gave the signal for crossing the river, it was remarkable with what great eagerness and haste they rushed into all kinds of danger. Each man strove to outstrip all others and hastened to save himself from so many terrors; some used the hastily constructed rafts, holding to their horses as they swam here and there, others seated themselves on bladders, still others under the pressure of necessity found various other helps and rushed in an oblique direction into the waves of the onrushing waters.

The emperor himself with a few others crossed in the small boats, which, as I have said, survived the burning of the fleet, and ordered the same craft to go back and forth, until we were all transported. At last all of us (except those who were drowned) reached the opposite bank, saved from danger by the favour of the supreme deity after many difficulties.

While the fear of impending disasters oppressed us, we learned from the report of our scouting cavalry, that the Persians, too far off to be seen, were making a bridge, in order that when all hostilities should cease after the conclusion of the treaty of peace, and our men were marching carelessly, they might attack the sick and the animals which had long been exhausted; but when they found that they were discovered, they gave up their wicked design.

Relieved now from this anxiety and hastening on by forced marches, we approached Hatra, an old city lying in the midst of a desert and long since abandoned. The warlike emperors Trajan and Severus tried at various times to destroy it, but almost perished with their armies; I have related these acts also in telling of their careers.

Here we learned that on a plain extending for seventy miles through dry regions only water that was salt and ill-smelling could be found, and nothing to eat except southernwood, wormwood, dragonwort and other plants of the most wretched sort. Therefore the vessels which we carried with us were filled with fresh water, and by killing camels and other pack animals we provided ourselves with food, unwholesome though it was.

And after completing a march of six days and finding not even grass as the solace of their extreme necessity, Cassianus, the duke commanding the army in Mesopotamia, and the tribune Mauricius (who had been sent long before for the purpose) came to a Persian stronghold called Ur and brought food from the supplies which the army left with Procopius and Sebastianus had saved by frugal living.

From here another Procopius, a state-secretary, and the military tribune Memoridus were sent to the lands of Illyricum and Gaul, to announce the death of Julian, and the elevation of Jovian (after Julian’s decease) to Augustan rank.

To them the emperor had also given instructions to hand his father-in-law Lucillianus, who after his dismissal from the army had retired to a life of leisure and was then living at Sirmium, the commission as commander of the cavalry and infantry which he had delivered to them, and urge him to hasten to Milan, in order to attend to any difficulties there, or if (as was now rather to be feared) any new dangers should arise, to resist them.

To these instructions the emperor had added a secret letter, in which he also directed Lucillianus to take with him some men selected for their tried vigour and loyalty, with the view of making use of their support as the condition of affairs might suggest.

And he took the prudent step of appointing Malarichus, who also was even then living in Italy in a private capacity, as successor to Jovinus, commander of the cavalry in Gaul, sending him the insignia of that rank. Thereby he aimed at a double advantage: first, in getting rid of a general of distinguished service and therefore an object of suspicion; and, second, the hope that a man of slight expectations, when raised to a high rank, might show great zeal in supporting the position of his benefactor, which was still uncertain.

Also the men who were commissioned to carry out these plans were ordered to set the course of events in a favourable light, and wherever they went, to agree with each other in spreading the report that the Parthian campaign had been brought to a successful end. They were to hasten their journey by adding night to day, to put into the hands of the governors and the military commanders of the provinces the messages of the new emperor, to secretly sound the sentiments of all of them, and to return speedily with their replies, in order that as soon as it was learned how matters stood in the distant provinces, timely and careful plans might be made for safeguarding the imperial power.

Meanwhile rumour, the swiftest messenger of sad events, outstripping these messengers, flew through provinces and nations, and most of all struck the people of Nisibis with bitter grief; when they learned that their city had been surrendered to Sapor, whose anger and hostility they feared, recalling as they did what constant losses he had suffered in his frequent attempts to take their city.

For it was clear that the entire Orient might have passed into the control of Persia, had not this city with its advantageous situation and mighty walls resisted him. Nevertheless, however much the unhappy people were tormented with great fear of the future, yet they could sustain themselves with one slight hope, namely, that the emperor would, of his own accord or prevailed upon by their entreaties, keep the city in its present condition, as the strongest bulwark of the Orient.

While varied rumours were spreading the news of the course of events everywhere, in the army, since the few provisions which (as I have said) we had brought with us were used up, we should have been forced to resort to human bodies, had not the flesh of the slain pack-animals held out for a time; but the result was, that many arms and packs were thrown away; for we were so wasted by fearful hunger, that if anywhere a modius of flour was found (which seldom happened) it was sold for ten gold-pieces, and that was considered a cheap price.

Setting out from there, we came to Thilsaphata, where Sebastianus and Procopius, with the tribunes and officers of the soldiers which had been entrusted to them for the defence of Mesopotamia, came out to meet us as formal usage required. And after having been courteously received, they joined our march.

After this we went on more speedily, and looking eagerly at Nisibis, the emperor made a permanent camp outside of the city; but in spite of the earnest request of many of the populace to enter and take up his residence in the palace as was usual with the emperors, he obstinately refused, from shame that during his own stay within its walls the impregnable city should be handed over to the enemy.

There, as the darkness of evening was then approaching, Jovianus, chief among all the secretaries, who (as I have already said ) at the siege of the city of Maiozamalcha had with others been first to come out through the mine, was taken from the dining-table, led to a secluded spot, thrown headlong into a dry well, and crushed by a great number of stones that were thrown upon him. The reason for this undoubtedly was that, after Julian’s death, he too was named by a few as worthy of the throne, and that after the election of Jovian he had not acted with moderation, but was overheard whispering this and that about some business, and from time to time had even invited military officers to his table.

On the following day Bineses, one of the Persians, who (as I have said) was eminent beyond all others, hastening to fulfil the orders of his king, urgently demanded what had been promised. Therefore, with the permission of the Roman emperor, he entered the city and raised the flag of his nation on the top of the citadel, announcing to the citizens their sorrowful departure from their native place.

And when all were commanded to leave their homes at once, with tears and outstretched hands they begged that they might not be compelled to depart, declaring that they alone, without aid from the empire in provisions and men, were able to defend their hearths, trusting that Justice herself would, as they had often found, aid them in fighting for their ancestral dwelling-place. But suppliantly as the council and people entreated, all was spoken vainly to the winds, since the emperor (as he pretended, while moved by other fears) did not wish to incur the guilt of perjury.

Thereupon Sabinus, distinguished among his fellow-citizens for his wealth and high birth, declared in impassioned language that Constantius once, when the flames of a cruel war were raging, had been defeated by the Persians and finally had been driven in flight with a few followers to the unprotected post of Hibita, where he was obliged to live on a bit of bread which he begged from an old peasant woman; yet up to his last day he had lost nothing, whereas Jovian at the beginning of his principate, had abandoned the defences of provinces whose bulwarks had remained unshaken from the earliest times.

But when nothing came of this, since the emperor the more stoutly maintained the sanctity of his oath; and when for a time he had refused the crown that was offered him but was finally forced to accept it, one Silvanus, a pleader at the bar, was bold enough to say: Thus may you be crowned, O emperor, by the rest of the cities, Exasperated by these words, the emperor gave orders that all must leave the walls within three days, they the while expressing horror at such a condition of affairs.

Accordingly, men were appointed to drive them out, and threatened with death all who hesitated to leave. Lamentation and grief filled the city, and in all its parts no sound save universal wailing was to be heard; the matrons tore their hair, since they were to be sent into exile from the homes in which they were born and reared; mothers who had lost their children, and widows bereft of their husbands, mourned that they were driven far from the ashes of their loved ones; and the weeping throng embraced the doors or the thresholds of their homes.

Then the various roads were filled with people going wherever each could find refuge. In their haste many secretly carried off such of their own property as they thought they could take with them, disregarding the rest of their possessions, which, though many and valuable, they were obliged to leave behind for lack of pack-animals.

You are here justly censured, O Fortune of the Roman world! that, when storms shattered our country, you did snatch the helm from the hands of an experienced steersman and entrust it to an untried youth, who, since he was known during his previous life for no brilliant deeds in that field, cannot be justly either blamed or praised.

But what grieved the very heart of every patriotic citizen was this, that fearful of a rival to his power and bearing in mind that it was in Gaul and Illyricum that many men had taken the first steps to loftier power, in his haste to outstrip the report of his coming, under pretext of avoiding perjury he committed an act unworthy of an emperor, betraying Nisibis, which ever since the time of King Mithridates’ reign had resisted with all its might the occupation of the Orient by the Persians.

For never (I think) since the founding of our city can it be found by a reader of history that any part of our territory has been yielded to an enemy by an emperor or a consul; but that not even the recovery of anything that had been lost was ever enough for the honour of a triumph, but only the increase of our dominions.

Hence it was that triumphs were refused to Publius Scipio for the recovery of Spain; to Fulvius, when Capua was overcome after long contests, and to Opimius, when, after shifting fortunes of war, the people of Fregellae, at that time our deadly enemies, were forced to surrender.

In fact, the ancient records teach us that treaties made in extreme necessity with shameful conditions, even when both parties had taken oath in set terms, were at once annulled by a renewal of war. For example, when in days of old our legions were sent under the yoke at the Caudine Forks in Samnium ; when Albinus in Numidia devised a shameful peace ; and when Mancinus, the author of a disgracefully hasty treaty, was surrendered to the people of Numantia.

So then, after the inhabitants had been withdrawn, and the city had been handed over, the tribune Constantius was sent to deliver the strongholds, with the surrounding country, to the Persian grandees. Then Procopius was sent with the remains of Julian, in order to inter him, as he had directed when still alive, in the suburb of Tarsus.

Procopius set out to fulfil his mission, but immediately after burying the body he disappeared and in spite of the most careful search could not be found anywhere, until long afterwards he suddenly appeared at Constantinople, clad in the purple.

After this business had been thus attended to, we came by long marches to Antioch; where for successive days, as though the divinity were angered, many fearful portents were seen, which those skilled in such signs declared would have sad results.

For the statue of the Caesar Maximianus, which stood in the vestibule of the royal palace, suddenly dropped the brazen ball, in the form of the globe of heaven, which it was holding, the beams of the council hall gave forth an awful creaking, and in broad daylight comets were seen, about which the views of those versed in natural history are at variance.

For some think that they are so called because they are numerous stars united in one body, and send out writhing fires resembling hair. Others believe that they take fire from the dryer exhalations of the earth, which gradually rise higher. Others again think that the rays streaming from the sun are prevented by the interposition of a heavier cloud from going downward, and when the brightness is suffused through the thick substance, it presents to men’s eyes a kind of star-spangled light. Yet others have formed the opinion that this phenomenon occurs when an unusually high cloud is lit up by the nearness of the eternal fires, or at any rate, that comets are stars like the rest, the appointed times of whose rising and setting are not understood by human minds. Many other theories about comets are to be found in the writings of those who are skilled in knowledge of the universe; but from discussing these I am prevented by my haste to continue my narrative.

The emperor lingered for a time at Antioch, bowed down by the weight of divers cares, but pursued by an extraordinary desire for getting out of the place. Accordingly, he left there on a day in the dead of winter, sparing neither horse nor man, although many signs (as has been said) forbade, and entered Tarsus, the famous city of Cilicia, of whose origin I have already spoken.

Though in excessive haste to leave that place, he determined to adorn the tomb of Julian, situated just outside the walls on the road which leads to the passes of Mount Taurus. But his remains and ashes, if anyone then showed sound judgement, ought not to be looked on by the Cydnus, although it is a beautiful and clear stream, but to perpetuate the glory of his noble deeds they should be laved by the Tiber, which cuts through the eternal city and flows by the memorials of the deified emperors of old.

After this the emperor left Tarsus, and making long marches arrived at Tyana, a town of Cappadocia, where on their return the secretary Procopius and the tribune Memoridus met him. They gave him an account of their missions, beginning (as order demanded) with the entry of Lucillianus with the tribunes Seniauchus and Valentinianus, whom he had taken with him, into Mediolanum; but on learning that Malarichus refused to accept the position he had gone at full speed to Rheims.

Then, as if that nation were in profound peace, he ran off the track (as the saying is), and quite out of season, since everything was not yet secure, devoted his attention to examining the accounts of a former actuary. This man, being conscious of deceit and wrong-doing, fled for refuge to the army and falsely asserted that Julian was still alive and that a man of no distinction had raised a rebellion; in consequence of his falsehoods a veritable storm broke out among the soldiery, and Lucillianus and Seniauchus were killed. For Valentinianus, who was shortly afterwards emperor, in terror and not knowing where to turn, was safely gotten out of the way by Primitivus, his guest-friend.

This sad news was followed by another message, this time a happy one, namely, that soldiers sent by Jovian, heads of the divisions, as camp parlance termed them, were on the way, reporting that the Gallic army embraced with favour the rule of Jovian.

On receipt of this news Valentinian, who had returned with the others, was entrusted with the command of the second division of the targeteers, and Vitalianus, formerly a soldier in the division of the Eruli, was made a member of the household troops; long afterwards he was raised to the rank of Count, but suffered a defeat in Illyricum. Arintheus was hastily sent to Gaul, bearing letters to Jovinus, urging him to act firmly in holding his position; he was also bidden to punish the originator of the disturbance and to send the ringleaders in the rebellion in fetters to the court.

After these arrangements had been made as seemed expedient, the officers of the Gallic troops had audience with the emperor at Aspuna, a small town of Galatia; when they entered the council chamber, the news which they brought was heard with pleasure, and after receiving rewards, they were ordered to return to their posts.

When the emperor had entered Ancyra, after the necessary arrangements for his procession had been made, so far as the conditions allowed, he assumed the consulship, taking as his colleague in the office his son Varronianus, who was still a small child ; and his crying and obstinate resistance to being carried, as usual, on the curule chair, were an omen of what presently occurred.