garded as sacred, and that self-interest
restrains the conquering monarch from dishonoring one of his own class.
We have also to give due weight to the fact that the earlier authorities
are silent with respect to any such atrocities, and that they are first
related half a century after the time when they are said to have
occurred.

Under these circumstances the scepticism of Gibbon with respect to them
is perhaps worthy of commendation.

It may be added that oriental monarchs, when they are cruel, do not show
themselves ashamed of their cruelties, but usually relate them openly in
their inscriptions or represent them in their bas-reliefs. The remains
ascribed on good grounds to Sapor do not, however, contain anything
confirmatory of the stories which we are considering. Valerian is
represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in
the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He
bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought
into the great king's presence; but otherwise he does not appear to be
subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most
probable that the Roman Emperor was not more severely treated than the
generality of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed
with abusing the rights of conquest.

The hostile feeling of Odenathus against Sapor did not cease with the
retreat of the latter across the Euphrates. The Palmyrene prince was
bent on taking advantage of the general confusion of the times to carve
out for himself a considerable kingdom, of which Palmyra should be the
capital. Syria and Palestine, on the one hand, Mesopotamia, on the
other, were the provinces that lay most conveniently near to him and
that he especially coveted. But Mesopotamia had remained in the
possession of the Persians as the prize of their victory over Valerian,
and could only be obtained by wresting it from the hands into which it
had fallen. Odenathus did not shrink from this contest. It has been,
with some reason, conjectured that Sapor must have been at this time
occupied with troubles which had broken out on the eastern side of his
empire. At any rate, it appears that Odenathus, after a short contest
with Macrianus and his son, Quietus, turned his arms once more, about
A.D. 263, against the Persians, crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia,
took Carrhae and Nisibis, defeated Sapor and some of his sons in a
battle, and drove t