d act of patriotic perfidy. The
inflexible spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal
conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor, by
delivering the guilty general into the hands of the Barbarians, the
greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would have cheerfully acquiesced
in the precedent of ancient times. [123]

[Footnote 120: Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such were the
natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.]

[Footnote 121: The people of Carrhae, a city devoted to Paganism, buried
the inauspicious messenger under a pile of stones, (Zosimus, l. iii. p.
196.) Libanius, when he received the fatal intelligence, cast his eye on
his sword; but he recollected that Plato had condemned suicide, and that
he must live to compose the Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua,
tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)]

[Footnote 122: Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and
credible witnesses of the public language and opinions. The people
of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace, which exposed them to the
Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier, (Excerpt. Valesiana, p.
845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]

[Footnote 123: The Abbe de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p.
212-227.) though a severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian was not
bound to execute his promise; since he could not dismember the empire,
nor alienate, without their consent, the allegiance of his people.
I have never found much delight or instruction in such political
metaphysics.]

But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his constitutional
authority, was the absolute master of the laws and arms of the state;
and the same motives which had forced him to subscribe, now pressed him
to execute, the treaty of peace. He was impatient to secure an empire
at the expense of a few provinces; and the respectable names of
religion and honor concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian.
Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants, decency,
as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the palace of
Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival. Bineses, the ambassador
of Persia, entered the place, displayed from the citadel the standard
of the Great King, and proclaimed, in his name, the cruel alternative
of exile or servitude. The principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that
fatal moment, had confided in the p