rotection of their sovereign, threw
themselves at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least,
not to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant,
exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had experienced
under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms and courage to
repel the invaders of their country: they requested only the permission
of using them in their own defence; and, as soon as they had asserted
their independence, they should implore the favor of being again
admitted into the ranks of his subjects. Their arguments, their
eloquence, their tears, were ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some
confusion, the sanctity of oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he
accepted the present of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their
hopeless condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, "O
emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your dominions!"
Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of a prince, [124] 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. [125] 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 f