nes and
Nohordates, [94] fifty nobles or satraps, and a multitude of their
bravest soldiers; and the success of the Romans, if Julian had survived,
might have been improved into a decisive and useful victory.

[Footnote 91: Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion, nunquam
se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such whimsical quarrels were not
uncommon between the gods and their insolent votaries; and even the
prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been twice shipwrecked, excluded
Neptune from the honors of public processions. See Hume's Philosophical
Reflections. Essays, vol. ii. p. 418.]

[Footnote 92: They still retained the monopoly of the vain but lucrative
science, which had been invented in Hetruria; and professed to derive
their knowledge of signs and omens from the ancient books of Tarquitius,
a Tuscan sage.]

[Footnote 93: Clambant hinc inde candidati (see the note of Valesius)
quos terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male compositi culminis
declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]

[Footnote 94: Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was his
practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by sending
them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers who had not
fallen by their master's side. Libanius, de nece Julian. ulcis. c. xiii.
p. 163.]

The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the
fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were
expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and arms,
and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining strength was
exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons, who examined his
wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching death. He employed
the awful moments with the firm temper of a hero and a sage; the
philosophers who had accompanied him in this fatal expedition, compared
the tent of Julian with the prison of Socrates; and the spectators,
whom duty, or friendship, or curiosity, had assembled round his couch,
listened with respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying
emperor. [95] "Friends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period of my
departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a
ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from philosophy, how
much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation
of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than of
affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death h