him aid in the struggle which he was about to renew
with Rome. Who these enemies exactly were, and what exact region they
inhabited, is doubtful. They comprised certainly the Chionites and
Gelani, probably the Euseni and the Vertse. The Chionites are thought to
have been Hiongnu or Huns; and the Euseni are probably the Usiun,
who, as early as B.C. 200, are found among the nomadic hordes pressing
towards the Oxus. The Vertse are wholly unknown. The Gelani should, by
their name, be the inhabitants of Ghilan, or the coast tract south-west
of the Caspian; but this locality seems too remote from the probable
seats of the Chionites and Euseni to be the one intended. The general
scene of the wars was undoubtedly east of the Caspian, either in the
Oxus region, or still further eastward, on the confines of India and
Scythia. The result of the wars, though not a conquest, was an extension
of Persian influence and power. Troublesome enemies were converted into
friends and allies. The loss of a predominating influence over Armenia
was thus compensated, or more than compensated, within a few years, by a
gain of a similar kind in another quarter.

While Sapor was thus engaged in the far East, he received letters
from the officer whom he had left in charge of his western frontier,
informing him that the Romans were anxious to exchange the precarious
truce which Mesopotamia had been allowed to enjoy during the last
five or six years for a more settled and formal peace. Two great Roman
officials, Cassianus, duke of Mesopotamia, and Musonianus, Praetorian
prefect, understanding that Sapor was entangled in a bloody and
difficult war at the eastern extremity of his empire, and knowing that
Constantius was fully occupied with the troubles caused by the inroads
of the barbarians into the more western of the Roman provinces, had
thought that the time was favorable for terminating the provisional
state of affairs in the Mesopotamian region by an actual treaty. They
had accordingly opened negotiations with Tamsapor, satrap of Adiabene,
and suggested to him that he should sound his master on the subject
of making peace with Rome. Tamsapor appears to have misunderstood the
character of these overtures, or to have misrepresented them to Sapor;
in his despatch he made Constantius himself the mover in the matter,
and spoke of him as humbly supplicating the great king to grant him
conditions. It happened that the message reached Sapor just as he had