[Sidenote:  A.D. 200(?)] [Sidenote:—­11—­] After laying in a large store of food and preparing many engines he in person again led an attack upon Hatra.  He deemed it a disgrace, now that other points had been subdued, that this one alone, occupying a central position, should continue to resist.  And he lost a large amount of money and all his engines except those of Priscus, as I stated earlier, [Footnote:  Compare Book Seventy-four, chapter 11.] besides many soldiers.  Numbers were annihilated in foraging expeditions, as the barbarian cavalry (I mean that of the Arabians) kept everywhere assailing them with precision and violence.  The archery of the Atreni, too, was effective over a very long range.  Some missiles they hurled from engines, striking many of Severus’s men-at-arms, for they discharged two missiles in one and the same shot and there were also many hands and many arrows to inflict injury.  They did their assailants the utmost damage, however, when the latter approached the wall, and in an even greater degree after they had broken down a little of it.  Then they threw at them among other things the bituminous naphtha of which I wrote above [Footnote:  Compare the beginning of Book Thirty-six (supplied from Xiphilinus).] and set fire to the engines and all the soldiers that were struck with it.  Severus observed proceedings from a lofty tribunal. [Sidenote:—­12—­] A portion of the outer circuit had fallen in one place and all the soldiers were eager to force their way inside the remainder, when Severus checked them from doing so by giving orders that the signal for retreat be sounded clearly on all sides.  The fame of the place was great, since it contained enormous offerings to the Sun God and vast stores of valuables; and he expected that the Arabians would voluntarily come to terms in order to avoid being forcibly captured and enslaved.  When, after letting one day elapse, no one made any formal proposition to him, he commanded the soldiers again to assault the wall, though it had been built up in the night.  The Europeans who had the power to accomplish something were so angry that not one of them would any longer obey him, and some others, Syrians, compelled to go to the assault in their stead, were miserably destroyed.  Thus Heaven, that rescued the city, caused Severus to recall the soldiers that could have entered it, and in turn when he later wished to take it caused the soldiers to prevent him from doing so.  The situation placed Severus in such a dilemma that when some one of his followers promised him that, if he would give him only five hundred and fifty of the Europeans, he would get possession of the city without any risk to the rest, the emperor said within hearing of all:  “And where can I get so many soldiers?” (referring to the disobedience of the soldiers).