Ursicinus.

[92] Homer, Od. xiii. I; translated by Pope--

"He ceased, but left, so pleasing on their ear,
His voice, that listening still they seemed to hear."

And imitated by Milton, Paradise Lost, ix. 1--

"The angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So pleasing left his voice that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."

[93] The battle of Hileia took place A.D. 348; that of Singara three
years earlier.

[94] The Maritza, rising in Mount Haemus, now the Balkan.

[95] Antoninus is meant, as Hadrian was succeeded by Antoninus Pius.

[96] Doriscus was the town where Xerxes reviewed and counted his army,
as is related by Herodotus, vii. 60.

[97] "Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by three signs
which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or with the series of
the history:--1. The corn was ripe when Sapor invaded Mesopotamia, 'cum
jura stipula flavente turgerent'--a circumstance which, in the latitude
of Aleppo, would naturally refer us to the month of April or May. 2. The
progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the Euphrates, which
generally happens in July and August. 3. When Sapor had taken Amida,
after a siege of seventy-three days, the autumn was far advanced.
'Autumno praecipiti haedorumque improbo sidere exorto.' To reconcile these
apparent contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian
king, some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
seasons."--Gibbon, cap. xix.; ed. Bohn, vol. ii. 320. "Clinton, F.R., i.
442, sees no such difficulty as Gibbon has here supposed; he makes Sapor
to have passed the Tigris in May, reached the Euphrates July 8th,
arrived before Amida July 27th, and stormed the place October
7th."--Editor of Bohn's ed.

[98] That is, in the suburbs of Edessa, as cemeteries in ancient times
were usually outside the walls of cities.

[99] It is not known what this name is derived from: some read
Fortensis, instead of Fretensis, and those who prefer this reading
derive it either from Fortis, brave; or from Fortia, a small town of
Asiatic Sarmatia.

[100] Praeventores, or "going before;" superventores, "coming after," as
a reserve.

[101] In one of the earlier books which has been lost.

BOOK XIX.

ARGUMENT.

I. Sapor, while exhorting the citizens of Amida to surrender, is
assailed with arrows and javelins by the garrison--And when king
Grumbates makes a similar attempt, his