Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/427

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 403 some traces of art and preparation, we may discover CHAP, in this scene the manners of Cams, and the severe ' simpHcity which the martial princes, who succeeded Galhenus, had already restored in the Roman camps. The ministers of the great king trembled and retired. The threats of Cams were not without effect. He His victories ravaged Mesopotamia, cut in pieces whatever opposed afnarv*^^*^'^" his passage, made himself master of the great cities of death. Seleucia and Ctesiphon, (which seem to have surren- dered without resistance,) and carried his victorious arms beyond the Tigris *. He had seized the favour- able moment for an invasion. The Persian councils were distracted by domestic factions, and the greater part of their forces were detained on the frontiers of India. Rome and the east received with transport the ' news of such important advantages. Flattery and hope painted, in the most lively colours, the fall of Persia, the conquest of Arabia, the submission of Egypt, and a lasting deliverance from the inroads of the Scythian nations ^. But the reign of Cams was destined to ex- pose the vanity of predictions. They were scarcely A. D. 283. uttered before they were contradicted by his death ; ^^^' ^^' an event attended with such ambiguous circumstances, that it may best be related in a letter from his own secretary to the prefect of the city. " Cams," says he, " our dearest emperor, was confined by sickness to his bed, when a furious tempest arose in the camp. The darkness which overspread the sky was so thick, that we could no longer distinguish each other; and the incessant flashes of lightning took from us the know- ledge of all that passed in the general confusion. Im- mediately after the most violent clap of thunder, we heard a sudden cry, that the emperor was dead ; and it soon appeared, that his chamberlains, in a rage of grief, had set fire to the royal paviHon, a circumstance f To the Persian victory of Cams, I refer the dialogue of the PhHopatrin, which has so long been an object of dispute among the learned. Hut to explain and justify my opinion, would require a dissertation. D d 2
 * Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 250; Eutropius, ix. 18; the two Victors.