besieging endured the hardships of persons besieged.  The men within the walls watched carefully for opportunities to make sallies; and those outside harassed fearfully the Romans that remained in position as often as they became separated, accomplishing this by making a sudden charge and wheeling about again in a narrow space:  this force outside did not trouble the food trains while the latter were en route to the villages, but would fall upon them unexpectedly when scattered in the homeward march.  But since Antony even under these conditions maintained his place before the city, Phraates, fearing that in the long run he might do it some harm either by himself or through securing some allied force, secretly sent some men to open negotiations with him and persuaded him by pretending that it would be very easy to secure peace.  After this, when men were sent to him by Antony, he held a conference with them seated upon a golden chair and twanging his bowstring; he first inveighed against them at length, but finally promised that he would grant peace, if they would straightway remove their camp.  On hearing this Antony was both alarmed at his boastfulness and ready to believe that a truce could be secured if he himself should shift his position:  hence he withdrew without destroying any of his implements of siege but behaved as if in friendly territory. [-28-] When he had done this and was awaiting the truce, the Medes burned the engines and scattered the mounds, while the Parthians made no proposition to him respecting peace but suddenly attacked him and inflicted very serious damage.  He found out that he had been deceived and did not venture to employ any further envoys, being sure that the barbarians would not agree to any reasonable terms, and not wishing to cast the soldiers into dejection by failing to arrange a truce.  Therefore he resolved, since he had once started, to hurry on into Armenia.  His troops took another road, since the one by which they had come they believed to have been blocked entirely, and on the way their sufferings were unusually great.  They came into unknown regions where they wandered at random, and furthermore the barbarians seized the passes in advance of their approach, digging trenches outside of some and building palisades in front of others, spoiled the water-courses everywhere, and drove away the flocks.  In case they ever got a chance to march through more favorable territory, the enemy would turn them aside from such places by false announcements that they had been occupied beforehand, and caused them to take different roads along which ambuscades had been previously posted, so that many perished through such mishaps and many of hunger. [-29-] As a result there were some desertions, and they would all have gone over, had not the barbarians shot down before the eyes of the others any who dared to take this course.  Consequently the men refrained from this, and from Fortune’s hands obtained the following relief.