OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

209

thousand of his veterans had fallen under the chap.

walls of Amida, during the continuance of a_

siege which lasted seventy three days; and thedisappointed monarch returned to his capitalwith affected triumph and secret mortification.

It is more than probable, that the inconstancyof his barbarian allies was tempted to relinquisha war in which they had encountered such un-expected difficulties ; and that the aged king ofthe Chionites, satiated with revenge, turnedaway with horror from a scene of action wherehe had been deprived of the hope of his familyand nation. The strength as well as spirit ofthe army with which Sapor took the field in theensuing spring, was no longer equal to the un-bounded views of his ambition. Instead ofaspiring to the conquest of the East, he wasobliged to content himself with the reductionof two fortified cities of Mesopotamia , Singaraand Bezabde ; m the one situate in the midst ofa sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,surrounded almost on every side by the deepand rapid stream of the Tigris. Five Romanlegions, of the diminutive size to which theyhad been reduced in the age of Constantine,were made prisoners, and sent into remote cap-tivity on the extreme confines of Persia . Afterdismantling the walls of Singara, the conquerorabandoned that solitary and sequestered place;but he carefully restored the fortifications ofBezabde, and fixed in that important post a

" TIu- account of these sieges is given by mianus, xx, 6, T.

VOL. III.

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