le to a Roman than a Christian.]

[Footnote 40: Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for the
occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p.
86) has published an epistle from Julian to the satrap Arsaces; fierce,
vulgar, and (though it might deceive Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably
spurious. La Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and
rejects it. Note: St. Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers
mention such a letter, iii. 37.--M.]

[Footnote 40a: Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but gave it
only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41--M.]

The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to deceive
the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The legions appeared
to direct their march towards Nisibis and the Tigris. On a sudden they
wheeled to the right; traversed the level and naked plain of Carrhae;
and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the
strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the
Macedonian kings. From thence the emperor pursued his march, above
ninety miles, along the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at
length, about one month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered
the towers of Circesium, [40b] the extreme limit of the Roman dominions.
The army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Caesars had ever
led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective and
well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and infantry, of
Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the different provinces;
and a just preeminence of loyalty and valor was claimed by the hardy
Gauls, who guarded the throne and person of their beloved prince.
A formidable body of Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from
another climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant
country, of whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love
of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of
Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while
he sternly refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The broad
channel of the Euphrates [41] was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred
ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy the wants, of the
Roman army. The military strength of the fleet was composed of fifty
armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an equal number of
flat-bottomed boats, which might occasional