ow and dangerous retreat, in
the presence of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply
diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the Roman
camp. [89] Julian, who always contented himself with such food as a
hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for the use of the
troops, the provisions of the Imperial household, and whatever could be
spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the tribunes and generals. But this
feeble relief served only to aggravate the sense of the public distress;
and the Romans began to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that,
before they could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all
perish, either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. [90]

[Footnote 88: Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers,
describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c., edit. in 4to.) the education and
dexterity of the Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno Persico, p. 650
651, &c.,) has collected the testimonies of antiquity.]

[Footnote 89: In Mark Antony's retreat, an attic choenix sold for fifty
drachmae, or, in other words, a pound of flour for twelve or fourteen
shillings barley bread was sold for its weight in silver. It is
impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of Plutarch, (tom. v. p.
102-116,) without perceiving that Mark Antony and Julian were pursued by
the same enemies, and involved in the same distress.]

[Footnote 90: Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184, 185,
186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359. The sophist
of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops were hungry.]

While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties of his
situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study
and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted
slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be
thought surprising, that the Genius of the empire should once more
appear before him, covering with a funeral veil his head, and his horn
of abundance, and slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch
started from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied
spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor,
which shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; [91]
the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, [92] unanimously
pronounced that he should ab