ce
of Assyria.]

[Footnote 54: The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one hundred
miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of the Pasitigris,
or Shutul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached the sea by a separate
channel, which was obstructed and diverted by the citizens of Orchoe,
about twenty miles to the south-east of modern Basra. (D'Anville, in the
Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)]

[Footnote 54a: We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has denied to
the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest gifts, the vine,
the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have been the case ir the age of
Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not so at the present day; and it is a
curious fact that the grape, the olive, and the fig, are the most common
fruits in the province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald
Kinneir, Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239--M.]

[Footnote 55: The learned Kaempfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a
traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat. Exoticae, Fasicul. iv. p. 660-764)
the whole subject of palm-trees.]

[Footnote 56: Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an Artaba of silver
each day. The well-known proportion of weights and measures (see Bishop
Hooper's elaborate Inquiry,) the specific gravity of water and silver,
and the value of that metal, will afford, after a short process, the
annual revenue which I have stated. Yet the Great King received no
more than 1000 Euboic, or Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria.
The comparison of two passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii. c.
89-96) reveals an important difference between the gross, and the net,
revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or silver
deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might annually save three
millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the seventeen or eighteen
millions raised upon the people.]

Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.--Part III.

The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of war;
and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine
and cruelty which had been committed by their haughty master in the
Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians summoned the rivers to their
assistance; and completed, with their own hands, the ruin of their
country. The roads were rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was
poured into the camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian
were obliged to conten