16. Marching on from thence, we come to Thilsaphata where Sebastian and
Procopius, with the tribunes and chief officers of the legions which had
been placed under their command for the protection of Mesopotamia, came
to meet the emperor as the solemn occasion required, and being kindly
received, accompanied us on our march.

17. After this, proceeding with all possible speed, we rejoiced when we
saw Nisibis, where the emperor pitched a standing camp outside the
walls; and being most earnestly entreated by the whole population to
come to lodge in the palace according to the custom of his predecessors,
he positively refused, being ashamed that an impregnable city should be
surrendered to an enraged enemy while he was within its walls.

18. But as the evening was getting dark, Jovian, the chief secretary,
was seized while at supper, the man who at the siege of the city
Maogamalcha we have spoken of as escaping with others by a subterranean
passage, and being led to an out-of-the-way place, was thrown headlong
down a dry well, and overwhelmed with a heap of stones which were thrown
down upon him, because after the death of Julian he also had been named
by a few persons as fit to be made emperor; and after the election of
his namesake had not behaved with any modesty, but had been heard to
utter secret whispers concerning the business, and had from time to time
invited some of the leading soldiers to entertainments.

IX.

Sec. 1. The next day Bineses, one of the Persians of whom we have spoken as
the most distinguished among them, hastening to execute the commission
of his king, demanded from Jovian the immediate performance of his
promise; and by his permission he entered the city of Nisibis, and
raised the standard of his nation on the citadel, announcing to the
citizens a miserable emigration from their native place.

2. Immediately they were all commanded to expatriate themselves, in vain
stretching forth their hands in entreaty not to be compelled to depart,
affirming that they by themselves, without drawing on the public
resources for either provisions or soldiers, were sufficient to defend
their own home in full confidence that Justice would be on their side
while fighting for the place of their birth, as they had often found her
to be before. Both nobles and common people joined in this supplication;
but they spoke in vain as to the winds, the emperor fearing the crime of
perjury, as he pretended, though in r