ties of your dominions!"
Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of a prince, was
displeased with freedom, and offended with truth: and as he reasonably
supposed, that the discontent of the people might incline them to submit
to the Persian government, he published an edict, under pain of death,
that they should leave the city within the term of three days. Ammianus
has delineated in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which
he seems to have viewed with an eye of compassion. The martial youth
deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so gloriously
defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear over the tomb
of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by the rude hand of a
Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed the threshold, and clung
to the doors, of the house where he had passed the cheerful and careless
hours of infancy. The highways were crowded with a trembling multitude:
the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general
calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of
his fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of an
adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to leave
behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects. The savage
insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the hardships of
these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however, in a new-built
quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the reenforcement of a very
considerable colony, soon recovered its former splendor, and became the
capital of Mesopotamia. Similar orders were despatched by the emperor
for the evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the
restitution of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the
glory and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has
justly been considered as a memorable aera in the decline and fall of the
Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes relinquished
the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces; but, since the
foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the god Terminus, who
guarded the boundaries of the republic, had never retired before the
sword of a victorious enemy.

After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of his
people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away from the
scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole court to enjoy the
luxury of Antioch. Without consu