command the
infantry, as successor to Barbatio. And then he, this greedy promoter of
revolution, as they called him, being within their reach, could easily
be attacked by his bitter and formidable enemies.

6. While these things were going on in the camp of Constantius, as at a
festival or a theatre, and while the dispensers of rank which was bought
and sold were distributing the price agreed upon among the influential
houses, Antoninus, having reached Sapor's winter quarters, was received
with gladness; and being ennobled by the grant of a turban, an honour
which gives admission to the royal table, and also that of assisting at
and delivering one's opinion in the councils of the Persians, went
onwards, not with a punt pole or a tar rope, as the proverb is (that is
to say, not by any tedious or circuitous path), but with flowing sails
into the conduct of state affairs, and stirring up Sapor, as formerly
Maharbal roused the sluggish Hannibal, was always telling him that he
knew how to conquer, but not how to use a victory.

7. For having been bred up in active life, and being a thorough man of
business, he got possession of the feelings of his hearers, who like
what tickles their ears, and who do not utter their praises aloud, but,
like the Phaeacians in Homer, admire in silence,[92] while he recounted
the events of the last forty years; urging that, after all these
continual wars, and especially the battles of Hileia and Singara,[93]
where that fierce combat by night took place, in which we lost a vast
number of our men, as if some fecial had interposed to stop them, the
Persians, though victorious, had never advanced as far as Edessa or the
bridges over the Euphrates. Though with their warlike power and
splendid success, they might have pushed their advances especially at
that moment, when in consequence of the protracted troubles of their
civil wars the blood of the Romans was being poured out on all sides.

8. By these and similar speeches the deserter, preserving his sobriety
at the banquets, where, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks, the
Persians deliberate on war and other important affairs, stimulated the
fiery monarch, and persuaded him to rely upon the greatness of his
fortune, and to take up arms the moment that the winter was over, and he
himself boldly promised his assistance in many important matters.

VI.

Sec. 1. About this time Sabinianus, being elated at the power which he had
suddenly acqu