erson.
He besieged it for above thirty days, and employed against it all the
means of capture which were known to the military art of the period.
But the defence was ably conducted by the bishop of the city, a certain
Eunomius, who was resolved that, if he could prevent it, an infidel
and persecuting monarch should never lord it over his see. Eunomius not
merely animated the defenders, but took part personally in the defence,
and even on one occasion discharged a stone from a balista with his own
hand, and killed a prince who had not confined himself to his military
duties, but had insulted the faith of the besieged. The death of this
officer is said to have induced Varahran to retire, and not further
molest Theodosiopolis.

While the fortified towns on either side thus maintained themselves
against the attacks made on them, Theodosius, we are told, gave an
independent command to the patrician Procopius, and sent him at the head
of a body of troops to oppose Varahran. The armies met, and were on the
point of engaging when the Persian monarch made a proposition to decide
the war, not by a general battle, but by a single combat. Procopius
assented; and a warrior was selected on either side, the Persians
choosing for their champion a certain Ardazanes, and the Romans
"Areobindus the Goth," count of the "Foederati." In the conflict which
followed the Persian charged his adversary with his spear, but the
nimble Goth avoided the thrust by leaning to one side, after which he
entangled Ardazanes in a net, and then despatched him with his sword.
The result was accepted by Varahran as decisive of the war, and he
desisted, from any further hostilities. Areobindus received the thanks
of the emperor for his victory, and twelve years later was rewarded with
the consulship.

But meanwhile, in other portions of the wide field over which the war
was raging, Rome had obtained additional successes. Ardaburius, who
probably still commanded in Mesopotamia, had drawn the Persian force
opposed to him into an ambuscade, and had destroyed it, together with
its seven generals. Vitianus, an officer of whom nothing more is known,
had exterminated the remnant of the Arabs not drowned in the Euphrates.
The war had gone everywhere against the Persians; and it is not
improbable that Varahran, before the close of A.D. 421, proposed terms
of peace.

Peace, however, was not exactly made till the next year. Early in A.D.
422, a Roman envoy, by name Ma