lis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced
into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every
precaution had been used which could retard their progress, or defeat
their design. The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places
of strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on fire,
the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines
were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters
of the Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing his
plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer circuit, but
through a fertile territory, towards the head of the Euphrates, where
the infant river is reduced to a shallow and accessible stream. Sapor
overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis; but as he
passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty
of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission.
The sacrilegious insult of a random dart, which glanced against the
royal tiara, convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch
listened with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured
him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification of
his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards the gates
with a select body of troops, and required the instant surrender of the
city, as the only atonement which could be accepted for such an act
of rashness and insolence. His proposals were answered by a general
discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced
through the heart by a javelin, shot from one of the balistae. The
funeral of the prince of the Chionites was celebrated according to the
rites of the country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by
the solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should serve
as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate the memory, of
his son.

The ancient city of Amid or Amida, which sometimes assumes the
provincial appellation of Diarbekir, is advantageously situate in a
fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial channels of the
Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular
form round the eastern part of the city. The emperor Constantius
had recently conferred on Amida the honor of his own name, and the
additional fortifications