to have contained a population of four hundred
thousand souls. Demosthenes, the governor of Caesarea, defended
it bravely, and, had force only been used against him, might have
prevailed; but Sapor found friends within the walls, and by their help
made himself master of the place, while its bold defender was obliged to
content himself with escaping by cutting his way through the victorious
host. All Asia Minor now seemed open to the conqueror; and it is
difficult to understand why he did not at any rate attempt a permanent
occupation of the territory which he had so easily overrun. But it
seems certain that he entertained no such idea. Devastation and plunder,
revenge and gain, not permanent conquest, were his objects; and hence
his course was everywhere marked by ruin and carnage, by smoking towns,
ravaged fields, and heaps of slain. His cruelties have no doubt been
exaggerated; but when we hear that he filled the ravines and valleys of
Cappadocia with dead bodies, and so led his cavalry across them; that
he depopulated Antioch, killing or carrying off into slavery almost the
whole population; that he suffered his prisoners in many cases to perish
of hunger, and that he drove them to water once a day like beasts, we
may be sure that the guise in which he showed himself to the Romans was
that of a merciless scourge--an avenger bent on spreading the terror
of his name--not of one who really sought to enlarge the limits of his
empire.

During the whole course of this plundering expedition, until the retreat
began, we hear but of one check that the bands of Sapor received. It had
been determined to attack Emesa (now Hems), one of the most important of
the Syrian towns, where the temple of Venus was known to contain a vast
treasure. The invaders approached, scarcely expecting to be resisted;
but the high priest of the temple, having collected a large body of
peasants, appeared, in his sacerdotal robes, at the head of a
fanatic multitude armed with slings, and succeeded in beating off the
assailants. Emesa, its temple, and its treasure, escaped the rapacity
of the Persians; and an example of resistance was set, which was not
perhaps without important consequences.

For it seems certain that the return of Sapor across the Euphrates was
not effected without considerable loss and difficulty. On his advance
into Syria he had received an embassy from a certain Odenathus, a Syrian
or Arab chief, who occupied a position of semi-i