Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/269

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 245 Asia P. Many ages after the fall of their empire, Se- CHAP. leucia retained the genuine characters of a Grecian !_ colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom. The independent republic was governed by a senate of three hundred nobles ; the people consisted of six hundred thousand citizens ; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was some- times provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony *i. The Parthian monarchs, like the mogul sovereigns of Hindostan, delighted in the pas- toral life of their Scythian ancestors ; and the imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of only three miles from Seleucia^ The innumerable attendants on luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city^ Under the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far as Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the A. D. 165. Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian kings ; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack and conflagration of Seleu- cia, with the massacre of three hundred thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman triumph*. Seleucia, already exhausted by the neigh- P For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Modain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each other, see an excellent geogra- phical tract of M. d'Anville, in M6m. de I'Acad^mie, torn. xxx. q Tacit. Annal. xi. 42 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26. ^ This may be inferred from Strabo, 1. xvi. p. 743. zebe from Dehli to Cashmir, describes with great accuracy the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry consisted of thirty-five thousand men, that of infantry of ten thousand. It was computed that the camp con- tained one hundred and fifty thousand horses, mules, and elephants; fifty thousand camels ; fifty thousand oxen ; and between three and four hundred thousand persons. Almost all Dehli followed the court, whose magnificence supported its industry. ' Dion, 1. Ixxi. p. 1178 ; Hist. August, p. 38 ; Eutrop. viii. 10. Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the Augustan History) attempted to vindicate the Romans, by alleging that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith.
 * That most curious traveller Bernier, who followed the camp of Aureng-