k out in revolt: the natives should take arms,
rise against the soldiers quartered upon them, and kill all, or as many
as possible. Phraates promised to be at hand with his army, to prevent,
the scattered detachments from giving help to each other. It was
calculated that in this way the invaders might be cut off almost to a
man without the trouble of even fighting a battle.

But, before he proceeded to extremities, the Parthian prince determined
to give his adversary a chance of escaping the fate prepared for him by
timely concessions. The winter was not over; but the snow was beginning
to melt through the increasing warmth of the sun's rays, and the day
appointed for the general rising was probably drawing near. Phraates
felt that no time was to be lost. Accordingly, he sent ambassadors to
Antiochus to propose peace, and to inquire on what conditions it would
be granted him. The reply of Antiochus, according to Diodotus, was
as follows: "If Phraates would release his prisoner, Demetrius, from
captivity, and deliver him up without ransom, at the same time restoring
all the provinces which had been taken from Syria, and consenting to pay
a tribute for Parthia itself, peace might be had; but not otherwise."
To such terms it was, of course, impossible that Phraates should listen;
and his ambassadors, therefore, returned without further parley.

Soon afterwards the day appointed for the outbreak arrived. Apparently,
no suspicion had been excited. The Syrian troops were everywhere quietly
enjoying themselves in their winter quarters, when, suddenly and
without warning, they found themselves attacked by the natives. Taken
at disadvantage, it was impossible for them to make a successful
resistance; and it would seem that the great bulk of them were massacred
in their quarters. Antiochus, and the detachment stationed with him,
alone, so far as we hear, escaped into an open field and contended for
their lives in just warfare. It had been the intention of the Syrian
monarch, when he took the field, to hasten to the protection of the
troops quartered nearest to him; but he no sooner commenced his march
than he found himself confronted by Phraates, who was at the head of
his entire army, having, no doubt, anticipated Antiochus's design and
resolved to frustrate it. The Parthian prince was anxious to engage at
once, as his force far outnumbered that commanded by his adversary;
but the latter might have declined the battle, if he had