reater part of Armenia was overrun and ravaged. From
Armenia Kobad conducted his army into Northern Mesopotamia, and formed
the siege of Amida about the commencement of the winter. The great
strength of Amida has been already noticed in this volume. Kobad found
it ungarrisoned, and only protected by a small force, cantoned in its
neighborhood, under the philosopher, Alypius. But the resolution of the
townsmen, and particularly of the monks, was great; and a most strenuous
resistance met all his efforts to take the place. At first his hope was
to effect a breach in the defences by means of the ram; but the besieged
employed the customary means of destroying his engines, and, where these
failed, the strength and thickness of the walls was found to be
such that no serious impression could be made on them by the Persian
battering train. It was necessary to have recourse to some other device;
and Kobad proceeded to erect a mound in the immediate neighborhood of
the wall, with a view of dominating the town, driving the defenders from
the battlements, and then taking the place by escalade. He raised an
immense work; but it was undermined by the enemy, and at last fell in
with a terrible crash, involving hundreds in its ruin. It is said that
after this failure Kobad despaired of success, and determined to draw
off his army; but the taunts and insults of the besieged, or confidence
in the prophecies of the Magi, who saw an omen of victory in the
grossest of all the insults, caused him to change his intention and
still continue the siege. His perseverance was soon afterwards rewarded.
A soldier discovered in the wall the outlet of a drain or sewer
imperfectly blocked up with rubble, and, removing this during the
night, found himself able to pass through the wall into the town. He
communicated his discovery to Kobad, who took his measures accordingly.
Sending, the next night, a few picked men through the drain, to seize
the nearest tower, which happened to be slackly guarded by some sleepy
monks, who the day before had been keeping festival, he brought the bulk
of his troops with scaling ladders to the adjoining portion of the wall,
and by his presence, exhortations, and threats, compelled them to force
their way into the place. The inhabitants resisted strenuously, but were
overpowered by numbers, and the carnage in the streets was great. At
last an aged priest, shocked at the indiscriminate massacre, made bold
to address the monar