ded with every species of missile weapons,
could engage almost on level ground with the troops who defended the
rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or courage
could execute, was employed in the defence of Amida, and the works of
Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the
resources of a besieged city may be exhausted. The Persians repaired
their losses, and pushed their approaches; a large preach was made by
the battering-ram, and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword
and by disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to escape
through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors in a
promiscuous massacre.

[Footnote 55: For the description of Amida, see D'Herbelot, Bebliotheque
Orientale, p. Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 108. Histoire de Timur Bec, par
Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43.
Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i. p. 301. Voyages d'Otter, tom. ii. p.
273, and Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these
travellers, a learned and accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida,
which illustrates the operations of the siege.]

[Footnote 56: Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in the
public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses, and is the
residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of Kara is derived
from the blackness of the stone which composes the strong and ancient
wall of Amida. ----In my Mem. Hist. sur l'Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I
conceive that I have proved this city, still called, by the Armenians,
Dirkranagerd, the city of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous
Tigranocerta, of which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On
the siege of Amida, see St. Martin's Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of
Byzantium, nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians,
on becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non nimium
amplae.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who took refuge from
the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St. Martin, ii. 290. This
interpretation is extremely doubtful. Wagner (note on Ammianus)
considers the whole population to amount only to--M.]

[Footnote 57: The operations of the siege of Amida are very minutely
described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an honorable par