OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

315

CHAP. VIII.

Of the state of Persia after the restoration of themonarchy by Artaxerxes .

WHENEVER Tacitus indulges himself in chap.those beautiful episodes, in which he relates VI11 'some domestic transaction of the Germans or of Thebarba-the Parthians , his principal object is to relieve east and'ofthe attention of the reader from a uniform scene the no, th -of vice and misery. From the reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus , the enemies ofRome were in her bosom; the tyrants, and thesoldiers; and her prosperity had a very distantand feeble interest in the revolutions that mighthappen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates .

But when the military order had levelled, in wildanarchy, the power of the prince, the laws ofthe senate, and even the discipline of the camp,the barbarians of the north and of the east, whohad long hovered on the frontier, boldly at-tacked the provinces of a declining monarchy.

Their vexatious inroads were changed intoformidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissi-tude of mutual calamities, many tribes of thevictorious invaders established themselves in theprovinces of the Roman empire. To obtain aclearer knowledge of these great events, we shallendeavour to form a previous idea of the cha-racter, forces, and designs of those nations whoavenged the cause of Hannibal and Mithridates .