Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/405

 in great misery, and the starving soldiers began to be furious with rage, thinking it better to perish by the sword than by hunger, that most degrading death.

5. But the eternal providence of God was on our side, and beyond our hopes the Persians made the first overtures, sending the Surena and another noble as ambassadors to treat for peace, and they themselves being in a state of despondency, as the Romans, having proved superior in almost every battle, weakened them daily.

6. But the conditions which they proposed were difficult and intricate, since they pretended that, out of regard for humanity, their merciful monarch was willing to permit the remains of our army to return home, provided the Caesar, with his officers, would satisfy his demands.

7. In reply, we sent as ambassadors on our part, Arinthaeus and Sallustius; and while the proper terms were being discussed with great deliberation, we passed four more days in great suffering from want of provisions, more painful than any kind of torture.

8. And in this truce, if before the ambassadors were sent, the emperor, being disabused, had retired slowly from the territories of the enemy, he would have reached the forts of Corduena, a rich region belonging to us, only one hundred miles from the spot where these transactions were being carried on.

9.  But Sapor obstinately demanded (to use his own language) the restoration of those territories which had been taken from him by Maximian; but as was seen in the progress of the negotiation, he in reality required, as the price of our redemption, five provinces on the other side of the Tigris,—Arzanena, Moxoena, Zabdicena, Rehomena, and Corduena, with fifteen fortresses, besides Nisibis, and Singara, and the important fortress called the camp of the Moors.

10. And though it would have been better to fight ten battles than to give up one of them, still a set of flatterers harassed our pusillanimous emperor with harping on the dreaded name of Procopius, and affirmed that unless we quickly recrossed the river, that chieftain, as soon as he heard of the death of Julian, would easily bring about a revolution which no one could resist, by means of the fresh troops which he had under his command.