his timid
remonstrances; and rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch,
broke down the rampart, and dispersed themselves through the tents to
recruit their exhausted strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their
labors. But the prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His
army, of which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had
been spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the shadow
of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the illumination of the
camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The
sincerity of history [61] declares, that the Romans were vanquished with
a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions was
exposed to the most intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of
panegyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by
the disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the
circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal
orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with amazing
coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as, in the judgment of
posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on the honor of the Imperial
name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his crown, had been made a captive
in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who might have excited the
compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged, tortured, and
publicly executed by the inhuman Romans. [62]

[Footnote 58c: It was during this war that a bold flatterer (whose name
is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander and Trajan, in order
to direct the victorious Constantius in the footsteps of those great
conquerors of the East. The former of these has been published for the
first time by M. Angelo Mai (Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.)
It adds so little to our knowledge of Alexander's campaigns, that it
only excites our regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose
eastern victories we have no distinct record--M]

[Footnote 59: Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the
wandering and predatory life of the Saracens, who stretched from the
confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile. It appears from the
adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so entertaining a
manner, that the high road between Beraea and Edessa was infested by
these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p. 256.]

[Footnote 60: We shall take from Eutropius the general idea of the war.
A