had already passed with so much difficulty.
The retrograde march was terribly harassed by the light cavalry of the
Persians, a species of troops peculiarly fitted for desultory warfare.
The difficulties of the Romans increased at every step, and the
harassing attacks of their pursuers became more frequent and more
formidable; at length, in a skirmish which almost deserved the name of
a battle, Julian was mortally wounded, and with his loss the Romans
dearly purchased a doubtful victory.

7. In the doubt and dismay which followed the death of Ju'lian, a few
voices saluted Jo'vian, the first of the imperial domestics, with the
title of emperor, and the army ratified the choice. The new sovereign
successfully repelled some fresh attacks of the Persians, but
despairing of final success, he entered into a treaty with
Sa'por, and purchased a peace, or rather a long truce of thirty years,
by the cession of several frontier provinces.

[Illustration: Jovian issuing the edict in favour of Christianity.]

8. The first care of Jo'vian was to fulfil the stipulated articles;
the Roman garrisons and colonies so long settled in the frontier towns
that they esteemed them as their native soil, were withdrawn; and the
Romans beheld with regret the omen of their final destruction in the
first dismemberment of the empire. The first edict in the new reign
contained a repeal of Julian's disqualifying laws, and a grant of
universal toleration. This judicious measure at once showed how
ineffectual had been the efforts of the late emperor to revive the
fallen spirit of paganism; the temples were immediately deserted, the
sacrifices neglected, the priests left alone at their altars; those
who, to gratify the former sovereign assumed the dress and title of
philosophers, were assailed by such storms of ridicule, that they laid
aside the designation, shaved their beards, and were soon
undistinguished in the general mass of society. 9. Jo'vian did not
long survive this peaceful triumph of Christianity; after a reign of
eight months, he was found dead in his bed, having been suffocated by
the mephitic vapours which a charcoal fire extracted from the fresh
plaster, on the walls of his apartment.

[Sidenote: A.D. 364.]

10. During ten days the Roman empire remained without a sovereign, but
finally the soldiers elevated to the imperial purple, Valentinian, the
son of count Gratian, an officer of distinguished merit. He chose as
his associate in t