of
his conqueror, it is difficult to form a decided opinion. The writers
nearest to the time speak vaguely and moderately, merely telling us that
he grew old in his captivity, and was kept in the condition of a slave.
It is reserved for authors of the next generation to inform us that he
was exposed to the constant gaze of the multitude, fettered, but clad in
the imperial purple; and that Sapor, whenever he mounted on horseback,
placed his foot upon his prisoner's neck. Some add that, when the
unhappy captive died, about the year A.D. 265 or 266, his body was
flayed, and the skin inflated and hung up to view in one of the most
frequented temples of Persia, where it was seen by Roman envoys on their
visits to the Great King's court.

It is impossible to deny that Oriental barbarism may conceivably have
gone to these lengths; and it is in favor of the truth of the details
that Roman vanity would naturally have been opposed to their invention.
But, on the other hand, we have to remember that in the East the person
of a king is generally regarded as sacred, and that self-interest
restrains the conquering monarch from dishonoring one of his own class.
We have also to give due weight to the fact that the earlier authorities
are silent with respect to any such atrocities and that they are
first related half a century after the time when they are said to
have occurred. Under these circumstances the scepticism of Gibbon with
respect to them is perhaps more worthy of commendation than the ready
faith of a recent French writer.

It may be added that Oriental monarchs, when they are cruel, do not show
themselves ashamed of their cruelties, but usually relate them openly in
their inscriptions, or represent them in their bas-reliefs. The remains
ascribed on good grounds to Sapor do not, however, contain anything
confirmatory of the stories which we are considering. Valerian is
represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in
the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He
bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought
into the Great King's presence; but otherwise he does not appear to
be subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most
probable that the Roman emperor was not more severely treated than the
generalty of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed
with abusing the rights of conquest.

The hostile feeling of Odenath