Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/383

A.D. 363.] and the nearly ripe crops; and we, being unable to advance by reason of the conflagration, remained stationary in our camp till the fire was exhausted. And the Persians, insulting us from a distance, sometimes spread themselves widely on purpose, sometimes offered us resistance in a compact body; so that to us who beheld them from a distance it might seem that the reinforcements of the king had come up, and we might imagine that it was on that account that they had ventured on their audacious sallies and unwonted enterprises.

8. Both the emperor and the troops were greatly vexed at this, because they had no means of constructing a bridge, since the ships had been inconsiderately destroyed, nor could any check be offered to the movements of the strange enemy, whom the glistening brilliancy of their arms showed to be close at hand; this armour of theirs being singularly adapted to all the inflections of their body. There was another evil of no small weight, that the reinforcements which we were expecting to arrive under the command of Arsaces and some of our own generals, did not make their appearance, being detained by the causes already mentioned.

VIII
1. The emperor, to comfort his soldiers who were made anxious by these events, ordered the prisoners who were of slender make, as the Persians usually are, and who were now more than usually emaciated, to be brought before the army; and looking at our men he said, "Behold what those warlike spirits consider men, little ugly dirty goats; and creatures who, as many events have shown, throw away their arms and take to flight before they can come to blows."

2. And when he had said this, and had ordered the prisoners to be removed, he held a consultation on what was to be done; and after many opinions of different kinds had been delivered, the common soldiers inconsiderately crying out that it was best to return by the same way they had advanced, the emperor steadily opposed this idea, and was joined by several officers who contended that this could not be done, since all the forage and crops had been destroyed throughout the plain, and the remains of the