an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position of
Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may have
produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river for the
boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman frontier
traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris. * Note: There
are here several errors. Gibbon has confounded the streams, and the
towns which they pass. The Aboras, or rather the Chaboras, the Araxes of
Xenophon, has its source above Ras-Ain or Re-Saina, (Theodosiopolis,)
about twenty-seven leagues from the Tigris; it receives the waters of
the Mygdonius, or Saocoras, about thirty-three leagues below Nisibis. at
a town now called Al Nahraim; it does not pass under the walls of
Singara; it is the Saocoras that washes the walls of that town: the
latter river has its source near Nisibis. at five leagues from the
Tigris. See D'Anv. l'Euphrate et le Tigre, 46, 49, 50, and the map.----
To the east of the Tigris is another less considerable river, named also
the Chaboras, which D'Anville calls the Centrites, Khabour, Nicephorius,
without quoting the authorities on which he gives those names. Gibbon
did not mean to speak of this river, which does not pass by Singara, and
does not fall into the Euphrates. See Michaelis, Supp. ad Lex. Hebraica.
3d part, p. 664, 665.--G.]

[Footnote 78: Procopius de Edificiis, l. ii. c. 6.]

[Footnote 79: Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Carduene,
are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two, Peter (in
Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I have preferred
Ammianus, (l. xxv. 7,) because it might be proved that Sophene was never
in the hands of the Persians, either before the reign of Diocletian, or
after that of Jovian. For want of correct maps, like those of M.
d'Anville, almost all the moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their
head, have imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome,
that the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.]

[Footnote 791: See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 380. He would read, for
Intiline, Ingeleme, the name of a small province of Armenia, near the
sources of the Tigris, mentioned by St. Epiphanius, (Haeres, 60;) for
the unknown name Arzacene, with Gibbon, Arzanene. These provinces do
not appear to have made an integral part of the Roman empire; Roman
garrisons replaced those of Persia, but the sovereignty remained in the
hands of the feudatory prin