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. But
the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, 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.
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 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 lor