atu precaut fieri
prohibere tentarent. * Note: It is evident that Gibbon has mistaken
the sense of Libanius; his words can only apply to a commander of a
detachment, not to so eminent a person as the Praefect of the East. St.
Martin, iii. 313.---M.]

[Footnote 69: Hinc Imperator.... (says Ammianus) ipse cum levis
armaturae auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens, &c. Yet Zosimus,
his friend, does not allow him to pass the river till two days after the
battle.]

[Footnote 70: Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A similar disposition is
ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of the Iliad; and Homer
was never absent from the mind of Julian.]

[Footnote 71: Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque agminibus
totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas victor miles intrasset, ni
major praedarum occasio fuisset, quam cura victoriae, (Sextus Rufus de
Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice might dispose them to hear the advice
of Victor.]

[Footnote 71a: The suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new fragment of
Eunapius, were so full of provisions, that the soldiers were in danger
of suffering from excess. Mai, p. 260. Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz.
Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike dances and games in his camp to
recreate the soldiers Ibid.--M.]

[Footnote 72: The labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris, and
the victory, are described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg. Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,)
Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and Sextus Rufus, (de Provinciis, c.
28.)]

On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the Jovians and
Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed near two thirds
of the whole army, were securely wafted over the Tigris. [73] While
the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon the desolation of the
adjacent country, Julian cast many an anxious look towards the North, in
full expectation, that as he himself had victoriously penetrated to the
capital of Sapor, the march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian
and Procopius, would be executed with the same courage and diligence.
His expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian
king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of
his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; [74] and by the
dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or
executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had
relinquis